s2e12: Acts of Sacrifice
My good, dear friend
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.
A deeply strange episode, beset by lazy staging and a truly awful joke punchline, ‘Acts of Sacrifice’ nevertheless succeeds through great performances and an otherwise decent script.
Let’s get that ‘sex scene’ out the way first. It’s godawful. Unfunny, cringeworthy, deeply stupid. I could keep going. The Lumati plotline works well up to that point, when it descends into juvenile farce. It undermines the interesting points raised by the b-plot. Claudia Christian goes for it like a trooper but can’t save the scene: it’s an embarrassment. The sort of thing that would stop someone from watching Babylon 5.
This loops me round to my other criticism of the episode, which is the wooden staging. B5 has always had a theatrical element but it’s off the scale in this episode. Almost every scene is a single camera pointing at two characters, both of whom are facing camera and largely ignoring each other, even while in conversation.
It’s super weird.
Director Jim Johnston has put together many solid episodes, but this isn’t one of them. It looks like it was rushed, and they didn’t have time for proper coverage or to think of interesting camera angles. The editing is also minimal, with lengthy shots and few cuts — which would be a cool stylistic thing ordinarily, but in this episode ends up feeling like the editor’s fallen asleep at the desk.
If it was just one scene it’d be one thing; that almost every scene is treated in the same way is quite bizarre. Scene after scene of two characters squeezed into the 4:3 frame, talking vaguely at the camera rather than to each other.
That lack of imagination in the shots and editing undermines a key scene, which is the fight for dominance between the Narns. The budget and schedule really damage this sequence: an angry, fighting Narn should be a terrifying thing (we glimpsed this when Sheridan faced down an enraged G’Kar a couple of episodes back). Brutal, visceral, alien. Instead we get a couple of people flailing their arms about and hopping. It’s all shot in wides with few cuts, and the choreography just isn’t up to the job. If there was ever a time to go in close, handheld, and cut rapidly to disguise the lack of fighting skill, this was it.
Deep breath.
Despite all of the above, it’s a pretty good episode. The opening sequence with the Narn cruiser is very effective (and staged much better than the live action combat). I love the writing around the political scheming and the Narn-Centauri conflict in general. It’s remarkable, and unfortunate, how that storyline and its themes continue to resonate in 2024. Without wading into real world politics, it’s not difficult to start comparing the Narn’s predicament and the Centauri’s aggression with conflict zones around the world: at the time of making the show in the mid-90s, JMS presumably had other comparison points in mind, but the strength of the writing is that it still feels relevant and insightful. The names of the players change, but the game remains the same. More’s the pity.
We get to see real regret from Londo in this episode. He’s realised what path he’s on, and has resigned himself to it. He’s trying to hold on to the version of himself we knew in season 1, but it’s slipping away. Meanwhile, G’Kar is being continually challenged to reinvent himself, or at least find facets he didn’t know were there. They’re travelling in opposite directions and it’s fascinating to watch.
It’s a peculiar episode with some quite incompetent execution, but the writing and performances keep it ticking along.
Let’s also take a moment to acknowledge that the Narn make-up, especially when piloted by Andreas Katsulas, is some of the finest prosthetic work ever made for TV or film.
Next up is ‘Hunter, Prey’.
‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️
There’s not a ton of spoiler stuff in here, other than the ongoing Narn-Centauri conflict. We do get to see Delenn acknowledging her change in circumstances, though even she doesn’t quite know what that means yet. Londo and G’Kar continue on their tragic paths.
Zack Allen gets more screen time in this episode. He’ll become a semi-regular, but the production team seems to be testing Jeff Conaway still, dipping a toe before fully committing.
We do get a reminder in this episode that Sheridan and Garibaldi don’t see eye-to-eye in the same way as Sinclair and Garibaldi. Garibaldi goes along with Sheridan’s delaying tactics, but clearly isn’t happy about it. They work together, but there’s a lack of trust there which will play out dramatically in season 4.
Right, see you next week.
I don't remember the (lack of) cinematography that well. My two biggest takeaways from that b-plot was Paul Williams in what I thought was excellent casting, and Down Below convincing the aliens that humankind was "worthy" of them. That's some excellent sci-fi writing.
I though the "sex" scene was like a typical Will Ferrell routine: funny for about 15 seconds, but at least two minutes too long.
But that was a footnote. The developments in the Narn/Centauri war dominated this episode in my opinion. Maybe it allowed me to forgive the substandard direction. Or maybe it was as simple as watching it via Tivo on a small TV.
Here's a random thought that flashed through my mind...
So the big riot scene in GROPOS was much more exciting than the one-on-one fight in Acts of Sacrifice. I've already speculated some of that might have been Johnston being less ambitious with this episode, but there's another possibility.
The riot scene isn't a structured narrative in that we're not following a plot driven action with a defined beginning/middle/end. It's a series of quick flashes to show us a larger situation has spiraled out of control. In other words, the G'kar fight is a two minute long sequence following two combatants, with a few cutaways for reaction and ancillary action.
The riot may have had a couple dozen fighters, but they're all doing one or two moves. Additionally, the riot was handheld, while the G'kar fight was shot on tripods.
So... Maybe the stunt teams can take all the individual small groups off the Zocalo stage to somewhere else in the building to rehearse their small segments while the groups are shooting. All his "side characters" can be somewhere else rehearsing while Johnston first worries about his principles - Garibaldi, Dodger, etc. Because the camera is handheld, the camera can be moved faster. As the riot isn't a single narrative Johnston could use his designated shoot time to get as many little one-to-three hit exchanges in the can as possible, and order his clips in the edit freely as needed to fill the scene time, just using the coolest bits he's got. As one who's done fight choreography (as performer and choreographer), I can say it's obviously faster to rehearse the bit that's only a Centauri jump-kicking a Narn, and that's the entire gag, than it is for G'kar and his foe to posture, grab, slam into the wall, roll around, push each other off, throw a roundhouse, fall to the floor, scramble to feet, leapfrog over the other guy, draw a knife, etc...
That's a lot of setup and rehearsal time for a single fight.
So the riot may just have been easier to shoot in the end than a single long fight. I've never been involved in a sequence like that riot (on a film set - I've been in 30-actor fights on stage), so, again, it's a guess.
Sigh. Amount of time spent thinking about this - about three seconds. Time to type up? Over ten minutes. Heh.