s2e22: The Fall of Night

It's the thought that counts

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Season 2 comes to a bombastic end, with multiple plot threads violently colliding. Perhaps even more so than the assassination of the President at the end of season 1, ‘The Fall of Night’ feels like a seismic shift in the foundation of the show from which there is no going back.

This episode aired 15 August 1995 here in the UK. By coincidence, I was on holiday in Cornwall with my family. I’d gone there with my mother, where we met up with my grandmother, aunts and cousins. This was an almost annual tradition back then, involving lots of beach, rock climbing, splashing about. I was 14 at the time.

On this particular holiday, my dad wasn’t able to come with us at the start due to work commitments. He drove across the country from Kent a week later.

This is relevant, don’t worry. I knew I was going to be in Cornwall for the final episode of season 2, and had carefully programmed the VHS to record the episode, with lots of buffer time to accommodate any scheduling delays. I don’t recall why I couldn’t watch the episode in the holiday cottage — perhaps there was no TV, or I knew I wouldn’t have an optimum viewing experience.

So my dad arrives a week later, and my first question is “was the VCR still all set to record the Babylon 5 episode?”

Looking a little shifty, my dad eventually admits that — as was his usual ritual when leaving the house for extended periods — he’d turned off all the power sockets in the house. Presumably in the 80s and 90s there was still a fear that house electrics could explode at any moment.

The episode would not have recorded. I’m pretty sure I behaved like a right little git for the rest of that holiday.

But here’s the thing, especially for any younger readers watching the show for the first time: back in 1995, there were no repeats in the UK. There was no catch-up. Digital video didn’t really exist yet, so you couldn’t download the episode, legally or otherwise. The episode would not be released on VHS for months. I don’t think I was even on the internet properly at this point, so couldn’t even look up a synopsis.

As a result, by the time season 3 rolled around in April 1996, I still had not seen the season 2 finale. I watched that first episode of the third season, desperately trying to decode what might have happened. Whenever I rewatch this episode, and Londo laments that he ‘saw nothing’ in the garden, I know how he feels.

Anyway.

After a fairly gentle opening, the Narn heavy cruiser showing up is a plot torpedo. It immediately puts Sheridan in an impossible situation, and we know that there’s going to be no happy ending here. It’s going to go wrong, it’s just a matter of how and when.

Having the Ministry of Peace and Nightwatch show up at the same time is a clever ratcheting of tension, and Mr Welles is a clever distraction from the ineffectual efforts of Lance. We assume for a while that Lance has good intentions, and he forms a jovial relationship with Ivanova. He’s a gentle grandfather figure, here to save the day with policy and rationality and good, old fashioned morality. When we realise that Lance is just as craven, just as compromised as everyone else in Earth Gov, it’s a shock. Sheridan is increasingly isolated, his position entirely undermined no matter which way he goes.

Meanwhile we have Welles sloughing about in the background, worming into everyone’s minds, an information vampire looking for any kind of dissent. Zack Allan again proves an excellent character in these scenes: he wants to get on with his job and not think too much about politics or the bigger picture, but events keep dragging him back. Jeff Conaway plays him so well.

Welles’ meddling also enables the main plot to accelerate. The arrival of the Centauri battleship is a herald of doom for everyone else. The music, the sound design, all hammers that point home. The activation of the new defence grid is punchy. The sight of starfuries going into open battle against Centauri fighters is inherently terrifying, because of the inevitable consequences. This conflagration is likely to lead to wider conflict.

This all comes on top of the League ambassadors raising the alarm about the Centauri widening their ambitions and creating more war fronts. There’s a real sense of the established order disintegrating.

There’s a brilliant moment when Londo reminds Sheridan that his jurisdiction ends at Babylon 5, and that he shouldn’t be meddling in wider political affairs. It’s a clever line because it’s true. Sheridan has no remit for getting involved in the Narn-Centauri conflict, or any wider wars. That’s an interesting problem for Sheridan’s character, someone more used to being on a mobile starship. It’s also an intriguing problem for the show itself, which remains largely locked to the space station.

The destruction of the Centauri vessel and the escape of the Narn ship always feels like the end of the episode. It would be a suitable finale! And then you realise that there’s still a chunk of episode left. At which point they pull off their most ambitious sequence to date.

I’ve always loved the core shuttle, and the way they shoot the stations from inside the train. I really like that Sheridan overrides the doors and jump out after spotting the bomb: no hesitation, no doubts. No plan either — but one problem at a time. That’s what he had to do in order to survive the next 10 seconds, and he does it. This whole episode shows Sheridan’s old instincts resurfacing, which makes Ivanova’s reminder of the Black Star defeat all the more relevant.

The visual effects hold up fairly well. This was 1995! Mind-blowing at the time, and other than some greenscreen fringing it’s good stuff, still. At last, after 44 episodes, we see Kosh for the first time, and it makes complete sense, as well as raising a bunch of fascinating and awkward questions. So…Vorlons are angels? Have they made themselves look like angels so as to fit into our mythology? Or do we have angels in our religions because it was Vorlons all along? How far back does the manipulation go? As for Londo not seeing anything, is that because the Centauri have prior dealings with the Shadows, and the Vorlons took steps to ensure they could observe silently?

Kosh rescuing Sheridan seems at odds with what you might expect the Vorlons to do. It’s hard to know whether they operate as a sort of hive mind single entity, or whether this would have been a decision made by Kosh alone.

Combined with the events of ‘Comes the Inquisitor’, I’m left feeling decidedly uneasy about the Vorlons and their motivations.

There’s a recalibration of the entire show by the end of ‘Fall of Night’. Sheridan and the others must now know that war is coming, is unavoidable. There are too many bad actors willing it into being. As Ivanova says, being a best hope for peace is no longer on the cards — but there’s a new responsibility, to be a last, best hope for victory.

Can you imagine if the show hadn’t been renewed? If this had been the final episode of the series? It’s a great finale on its own, but it works even better as a lead-in to season 3. At which point I should move over into spoiler territory.

Next up we begin season 3, with ‘Matters of Honour’.

‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️

There’s not much beneath the surface here, as it’s all out in front. The Vorlon stuff seems very positive and heroic on the surface, but certainly in retrospect is anything but. Although, this is also perhaps a hint that Kosh specifically is forming an unexpected bond with Sheridan, which will move him away from the Vorlon party line.

The Ministry of Peace and Nightwatch shift from background flavour to foreground threats, all smiles and teeth. We now know that C&C is undermined, and that Sheridan cannot trust all of his staff. That’s going to be a problem and come to a head during the breakaway next season.

We get Ivanova talking about her dream of captaining a starship, which will come to pass but rather earlier than intended due to Claudia Christian exiting the show at the end of season 4.

Otherwise, the stage is set for B5 to secede from Earth, and for Sheridan to expand his jurisdiction with the Rangers and White Star fleet. Londo and G’Kar are well and truly on their paths.

Oh, and Keffer is dead. Spoiler: he won’t be coming back. We’ll miss him (not really).