The Abuut subplot, of course, never really pays off. JMS couldn't predict a year in advance Andrea Thompson would quit the show. It IS interesting the Vorlons are wary of telepaths, considering Vorlons created them in the first place. One would assume the Vorlons programmed safeguards into telepaths - much like they embedded race memories in all races to perceive a Vorlon out of its suit as angels (or equivalent). So why the hell was Kosh messing around with Talia? Well, on another platform Simon Jones gave me the most likely correct hypothesis. Kosh is aware of the Ironheart incident. Talia is now (set up as) a wild card, and Kosh is "stacking the deck" for a later game.
Of course it never pays off.
Freeze framing screens, the screen in medlab when Franklin is analyzing the drug shows a noise pattern identical to the texture of the hull of a Shadow Battlecrab. This episode was produced after the season finale, "Chrysalis," so I would assume the Shadow Battlecrab had been designed. Coincidence, or did Deathwalker have help from Shadow agents? Everyone fighting over immortality is the kind of chaos the Shadows thrive on. Of course the Order-obsessed Vorlons would have none of it.
Is this seemingly standalone episode actually arc-in-disguise?
In fairness, I need to note the aforementioned medlab display and Shadow hull are based on voronoi noise... But so is the moving texture on the ass end of the Sunhawk, thus I'm likely reading too much into a quirk of graphics design, and the limits of available tech for procedural textures.
But it's also still a good possibility there's Shadow influence involved in Deathwalker's work.
Another mystery... Who blew up the Dilgar homeworld's star? In real life astronomy it can take centuries or millenia for a star to collapse before igniting into a nova, and that's after an expansion stage. To go nova and take out the homeworld without warning? I'd blame the Vorlons if they weren't more or less avoiding direct conflict at this point.
First, a correction. "The War Prayer" features Abbai Ambassador Mila Shar. Presumably, she was so traumatized as being left exposed in a firefight she returned home. Kalika is her replacement.
This episode is produced in the back half of the season. By now Optic Nerve (and the costume shop) had plenty of time to refine processes. Part of the reason why this episode finally features the League prominently is the Council have all been upgraded to full prosthetics, instead of static masks. It makes a difference, along with a higher proportion of non human extras continuing to make the station feel more populated.
Also a shout-out to Optic Nerve for the Deathwalker makeup. Sarah Douglas has large eyes, but the way her makeup and contacts work her eyes truly look inhumanly large - like "Battle Angel Attila" big. Today it's relatively easy and cheap to digitally enlarge eyes (I can point you to a tutorial using free software to create the effect), but in 1993 that's all down to excellent practical makeup and Sarah Douglas bugging out her eyes while wearing uncomfortable sclearal shells.
Thematically, Simon covered it well, but let's note that besides the Interplanetary incident of Vorlons blowing up a Minbari ship, along with an agreement between Earth and the League, Kosh effectively mind rapes Talia. Not nice. Keep things like this in mind as the series progresses...
Abuut was originally written for Gilbert Godfried. I enjoyed Godfried in many projects, but am glad he wasn't available for the episode. The Abuut scenes are the weakest part of the episode, but Godfried bringing his patented obnoxious overplaying into the episode would make that subplot interminable.
Lennier is my favorite character, and I enjoy how in his first scene he's so obviously enjoying a day off, walking the station, taking in the Zocalo with a small smile, and having a relaxing time. In the council scene, even before his apology/exposition to Sinclair, he's so obviously doing something he doesn't want to do. Bill Mumy underplays every moment with delicacy. And he holds his own against Jurrasik and Katsulas, who are enjoying getting to play broad.
Ivanova's solution to the problem of the blockade is... Great.
This is a Larry DiTillio script. Larry loved the "Jovian Sunspot" and worked it into every property he wrote for. Larry also had a weakness for the Sci-Fi trope of "exotic name/mundane object." "Altarian pickle?" Sigh. We forgive you, Larry. We also forgive you for trying to hard with "The hour of scampering."
I like to think Kosh had been standing there for two hours waiting because he hadn't given Talia an actually useful time reference.
Behind the scenes, Larry (who was also script editor for seasons 1 and 2 before JMS decided he needed to vet everything) is the writer who did the section of "Show Bible" detailing the League, the member species, and their backgrounds.
Mark Hendrickson appears again as the pilot of the Drazi Sunhawk. Hendrickson is just one of many "ensemble/background" characters who will feature in more episodes than most principles. As always, drink for Mark.
Also, remember to drink whenever Kosh says something that seems to make no sense, and stop drinking when he DOES make sense. This episode will get you drunk. Unless you play the game with tea, as I did.
The Drazi Sunhawk was designed by Ron Thornton. Ron worked on Blake's 7 (he created Scorpio), and the Sunhawk is an homage to Liberator.
Yes, yes, I am freeze-framing things like wall displays, data readout and newspapers. When Na'Toth is in customs during the teaser, events scheduled on Babylon 5 for the day include a Flea Market in the Zocalo, a Black Market in Brown Sector, and the Rolling Stones Farewell Tour. Keith Richards obviously was a early test subject for the anti-agapic.
Wait, the NARN and the CENTAURI BOTH collaborated with the Dilgar? Probably the only time those two species collaborated on anything.
Universe backstory - JMS has written the Dilgar War happened within about 70 years of first contact with the Centauri, and about 20 years after buying jumpgate tech. The Dilgar war is the incident which turned Earth from a scrappy upstart into a major player. JMS has written Earth influence is what helped a dozen or so disparate races become a LEAGUE. It also hints at why Earth was able to get others to participate in the Babylon Project
.
During the scene in Sinclair's office with Sinclair, Ivanova, Franklin, and Garibaldi there's a small insect flying around which shows up in Garibaldi's closeup. Funny the things visible on Blu-ray which were invisible in standard definition.
Let's do a quick rundown of the relative powers of the known species as this point in the narrative:
The Vorlons scare the shit out of everyone.
The Minbari scare the shit out of everyone but the Vorlons. Especially with their tech which makes it impossible to target lock (this item hasn't been formally mentioned in the series yet, but Sinclair's Battle of the Line flashback in "And the Sky Full of Stars" clearly shows "Negative Target Lock" on the HUD of his Starfury as he begins his ramming run).
This is technically a spoiler, but it's not plot based - the Narn and Centauri (and Minbari) all have "gravimetric tech," allowing for their ships to maneuver in space without vector-thrust reaction drives, and to have artifical gravity. Presumably the Narn stole the tech from the Centauri at the end of occupation.
League abilities are undefined, but, as Earth involvement turned the tide of the Dilgar War, we'll assume more than half have lower tech than Earth.
C&C on B5 is actually shown incorrectly. B5 uses centripetal force to create gravity. C&C is upside down! It's floor should point to the outer hull. C&C is also a low gravity area. Still, low budget 1990's TV. We'll forgive it.
I'm always curious about things like ship design. Minbari and Centauri ships not needing rotating sections for gravity, or thrusters for movement - was that a deliberate, conscious bit of a world building? If so, was it direct by JMS, or Thornton's crew making it up themselves? Or was it just accidental and a result of cool ship designs?
It all works very well in B5. Sometimes you see it the other way around, such as when an action scene falls flat and you get the sneaking suspicion that there was a breakdown between the script, the set designers and the camera department, resulting in the staging being all wrong. What worked on the page is suddenly very awkward. I always find it fascinating when practical production considerations impede on the storytelling, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
As I remember from my reading waaay too much information on B5 production, initially JMS was fine with more "magic tech" (as an example, the first draft of Soul Hunter had tractor beams, while Ron Thornton pushed for grappling with a Starfury), while it was Thornton who pushed for more physically realistic Earth tech - like the Cobra Bays and using centrifugal force on the launch.
Which helped inform the story and relative tech levels, as then Minbari, Centauri, and Narn ships not having centrifuges and not using vectored thrust set them apart.
I have mentioned the b5scrolls.com site, right? That's where to go to read interviews with the artists and designers. Much of what they say will contradict JMS... Well, when JMS and Ron Thornton disagree about production of the VFX, who ya gonna believe, the writer or the VFX artist?
As far as production difficulties affecting final show output, well... For B5 that would go in a spoiler thread. But here we'll talk about how in Star Wars EpIII Lucas Decided five days before shooting the sequence that the stuntman for Palpatine was out and Ian McDirmid was in, giving the actor without weapons training five days to learn the duel that the stuntman had rehearsed for three weeks.
I did think the subplot with Talia was a bit odd, but other than that, the Deathwalker plot was brilliant. The unfolding of Jhadur's motives was nicely done: at first you wonder if she really wants to atone, and by the end with the revelation that the serum needed a living being to die in order to work, she's somewhere between revenge and wanting people to think of the Dilgar honorably and it's incredible.
I don't remember if Delenn's absence is significant plot-wise, but Lennier is one of my favorites and he was so neatly defined in this as well. Good stuff.
Yeah, it seemed deliberate to have Delenn off-station, but wasn't explained. Perhaps just to give Lennier something to do? Though - I do like the thrum of activity you get even from these early B5 episodes. There's always the sense that there's more going on, the everyday station activity, just out of shot. Delenn being away for work fits into that.
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS.
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.
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.
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The Abuut subplot, of course, never really pays off. JMS couldn't predict a year in advance Andrea Thompson would quit the show. It IS interesting the Vorlons are wary of telepaths, considering Vorlons created them in the first place. One would assume the Vorlons programmed safeguards into telepaths - much like they embedded race memories in all races to perceive a Vorlon out of its suit as angels (or equivalent). So why the hell was Kosh messing around with Talia? Well, on another platform Simon Jones gave me the most likely correct hypothesis. Kosh is aware of the Ironheart incident. Talia is now (set up as) a wild card, and Kosh is "stacking the deck" for a later game.
Of course it never pays off.
Freeze framing screens, the screen in medlab when Franklin is analyzing the drug shows a noise pattern identical to the texture of the hull of a Shadow Battlecrab. This episode was produced after the season finale, "Chrysalis," so I would assume the Shadow Battlecrab had been designed. Coincidence, or did Deathwalker have help from Shadow agents? Everyone fighting over immortality is the kind of chaos the Shadows thrive on. Of course the Order-obsessed Vorlons would have none of it.
Is this seemingly standalone episode actually arc-in-disguise?
Can definitely imagine Shadow tech being involved. Jha'Dur might not even have been aware of it herself, but it's definitely a possibility.
In fairness, I need to note the aforementioned medlab display and Shadow hull are based on voronoi noise... But so is the moving texture on the ass end of the Sunhawk, thus I'm likely reading too much into a quirk of graphics design, and the limits of available tech for procedural textures.
But it's also still a good possibility there's Shadow influence involved in Deathwalker's work.
Another mystery... Who blew up the Dilgar homeworld's star? In real life astronomy it can take centuries or millenia for a star to collapse before igniting into a nova, and that's after an expansion stage. To go nova and take out the homeworld without warning? I'd blame the Vorlons if they weren't more or less avoiding direct conflict at this point.
SPOILER FREE ZONE.
First, a correction. "The War Prayer" features Abbai Ambassador Mila Shar. Presumably, she was so traumatized as being left exposed in a firefight she returned home. Kalika is her replacement.
This episode is produced in the back half of the season. By now Optic Nerve (and the costume shop) had plenty of time to refine processes. Part of the reason why this episode finally features the League prominently is the Council have all been upgraded to full prosthetics, instead of static masks. It makes a difference, along with a higher proportion of non human extras continuing to make the station feel more populated.
Also a shout-out to Optic Nerve for the Deathwalker makeup. Sarah Douglas has large eyes, but the way her makeup and contacts work her eyes truly look inhumanly large - like "Battle Angel Attila" big. Today it's relatively easy and cheap to digitally enlarge eyes (I can point you to a tutorial using free software to create the effect), but in 1993 that's all down to excellent practical makeup and Sarah Douglas bugging out her eyes while wearing uncomfortable sclearal shells.
Thematically, Simon covered it well, but let's note that besides the Interplanetary incident of Vorlons blowing up a Minbari ship, along with an agreement between Earth and the League, Kosh effectively mind rapes Talia. Not nice. Keep things like this in mind as the series progresses...
Abuut was originally written for Gilbert Godfried. I enjoyed Godfried in many projects, but am glad he wasn't available for the episode. The Abuut scenes are the weakest part of the episode, but Godfried bringing his patented obnoxious overplaying into the episode would make that subplot interminable.
Lennier is my favorite character, and I enjoy how in his first scene he's so obviously enjoying a day off, walking the station, taking in the Zocalo with a small smile, and having a relaxing time. In the council scene, even before his apology/exposition to Sinclair, he's so obviously doing something he doesn't want to do. Bill Mumy underplays every moment with delicacy. And he holds his own against Jurrasik and Katsulas, who are enjoying getting to play broad.
Ivanova's solution to the problem of the blockade is... Great.
This is a Larry DiTillio script. Larry loved the "Jovian Sunspot" and worked it into every property he wrote for. Larry also had a weakness for the Sci-Fi trope of "exotic name/mundane object." "Altarian pickle?" Sigh. We forgive you, Larry. We also forgive you for trying to hard with "The hour of scampering."
I like to think Kosh had been standing there for two hours waiting because he hadn't given Talia an actually useful time reference.
Behind the scenes, Larry (who was also script editor for seasons 1 and 2 before JMS decided he needed to vet everything) is the writer who did the section of "Show Bible" detailing the League, the member species, and their backgrounds.
Mark Hendrickson appears again as the pilot of the Drazi Sunhawk. Hendrickson is just one of many "ensemble/background" characters who will feature in more episodes than most principles. As always, drink for Mark.
Also, remember to drink whenever Kosh says something that seems to make no sense, and stop drinking when he DOES make sense. This episode will get you drunk. Unless you play the game with tea, as I did.
The Drazi Sunhawk was designed by Ron Thornton. Ron worked on Blake's 7 (he created Scorpio), and the Sunhawk is an homage to Liberator.
Yes, yes, I am freeze-framing things like wall displays, data readout and newspapers. When Na'Toth is in customs during the teaser, events scheduled on Babylon 5 for the day include a Flea Market in the Zocalo, a Black Market in Brown Sector, and the Rolling Stones Farewell Tour. Keith Richards obviously was a early test subject for the anti-agapic.
Wait, the NARN and the CENTAURI BOTH collaborated with the Dilgar? Probably the only time those two species collaborated on anything.
Universe backstory - JMS has written the Dilgar War happened within about 70 years of first contact with the Centauri, and about 20 years after buying jumpgate tech. The Dilgar war is the incident which turned Earth from a scrappy upstart into a major player. JMS has written Earth influence is what helped a dozen or so disparate races become a LEAGUE. It also hints at why Earth was able to get others to participate in the Babylon Project
.
During the scene in Sinclair's office with Sinclair, Ivanova, Franklin, and Garibaldi there's a small insect flying around which shows up in Garibaldi's closeup. Funny the things visible on Blu-ray which were invisible in standard definition.
Let's do a quick rundown of the relative powers of the known species as this point in the narrative:
The Vorlons scare the shit out of everyone.
The Minbari scare the shit out of everyone but the Vorlons. Especially with their tech which makes it impossible to target lock (this item hasn't been formally mentioned in the series yet, but Sinclair's Battle of the Line flashback in "And the Sky Full of Stars" clearly shows "Negative Target Lock" on the HUD of his Starfury as he begins his ramming run).
This is technically a spoiler, but it's not plot based - the Narn and Centauri (and Minbari) all have "gravimetric tech," allowing for their ships to maneuver in space without vector-thrust reaction drives, and to have artifical gravity. Presumably the Narn stole the tech from the Centauri at the end of occupation.
League abilities are undefined, but, as Earth involvement turned the tide of the Dilgar War, we'll assume more than half have lower tech than Earth.
C&C on B5 is actually shown incorrectly. B5 uses centripetal force to create gravity. C&C is upside down! It's floor should point to the outer hull. C&C is also a low gravity area. Still, low budget 1990's TV. We'll forgive it.
I'm always curious about things like ship design. Minbari and Centauri ships not needing rotating sections for gravity, or thrusters for movement - was that a deliberate, conscious bit of a world building? If so, was it direct by JMS, or Thornton's crew making it up themselves? Or was it just accidental and a result of cool ship designs?
It all works very well in B5. Sometimes you see it the other way around, such as when an action scene falls flat and you get the sneaking suspicion that there was a breakdown between the script, the set designers and the camera department, resulting in the staging being all wrong. What worked on the page is suddenly very awkward. I always find it fascinating when practical production considerations impede on the storytelling, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
As I remember from my reading waaay too much information on B5 production, initially JMS was fine with more "magic tech" (as an example, the first draft of Soul Hunter had tractor beams, while Ron Thornton pushed for grappling with a Starfury), while it was Thornton who pushed for more physically realistic Earth tech - like the Cobra Bays and using centrifugal force on the launch.
Which helped inform the story and relative tech levels, as then Minbari, Centauri, and Narn ships not having centrifuges and not using vectored thrust set them apart.
I have mentioned the b5scrolls.com site, right? That's where to go to read interviews with the artists and designers. Much of what they say will contradict JMS... Well, when JMS and Ron Thornton disagree about production of the VFX, who ya gonna believe, the writer or the VFX artist?
As far as production difficulties affecting final show output, well... For B5 that would go in a spoiler thread. But here we'll talk about how in Star Wars EpIII Lucas Decided five days before shooting the sequence that the stuntman for Palpatine was out and Ian McDirmid was in, giving the actor without weapons training five days to learn the duel that the stuntman had rehearsed for three weeks.
Which is why that duel is kinda lame.
I did think the subplot with Talia was a bit odd, but other than that, the Deathwalker plot was brilliant. The unfolding of Jhadur's motives was nicely done: at first you wonder if she really wants to atone, and by the end with the revelation that the serum needed a living being to die in order to work, she's somewhere between revenge and wanting people to think of the Dilgar honorably and it's incredible.
I don't remember if Delenn's absence is significant plot-wise, but Lennier is one of my favorites and he was so neatly defined in this as well. Good stuff.
Yeah, it seemed deliberate to have Delenn off-station, but wasn't explained. Perhaps just to give Lennier something to do? Though - I do like the thrum of activity you get even from these early B5 episodes. There's always the sense that there's more going on, the everyday station activity, just out of shot. Delenn being away for work fits into that.