s2e7: A Race Through Dark Places

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That’s more like it. ‘A Race Through Dark Places’ is a significant return to form after three decidedly wobbly — or outright offensive — episodes.

The silliness of ‘Spider in the Web’ is gone, the goofy acting and staging of ‘A Distant Star’ is nowhere to be seen and the bizarre, super creepy version of Dr Franklin has fortunately vanished. While ‘A Distant Star’ had its charms, I’d happily drop those other two episodes into a black hole.

Here we have a semi-detective story with Bester as the investigator. Koenig’s second turn as the character is rather delicious and he’s clearly enjoying himself, but never tips over into hammy. I like the way Talia gets sucked into yet another situation against her will, but then makes a definitive choice in the final act. The switch-up illusion at the end is a handy bit of genjutsu and is staged nicely. It’s especially good that Bester almost figures it out a couple of times before the end of the episode, but never quite gets there.

We also get a much clearer idea of how the Psi Corps works: the tales from the runaways are chilling and horrific, and the episode doesn’t shy away from what’s being said. Increasingly, it seems that Psi Corps is pulling all the strings, and that its an organisation you really don’t want in charge of anything.

Director Jim Johnston makes excellent use of the sets in this episode. It zips around the place and Earharts in particular feels suitably bustling and vibrant. It’s a competent, stylish episode which tells a good story, in other words. It ties into Franklin’s previous activities with the Downbelow clinic and all slots together nicely — cool that they brought back the lurker from ‘Chrysalis’, too. It’s a little tenuous the way Franklin is the one to set up the meeting…with himself, and I’m amazed Sheridan doesn’t fire him on the spot, but otherwise it’s good stuff.

The b-plot is equally entertaining, with Sheridan’s battle against having to pay rent. It’s a subplot that could be daft and a distraction, or feel like filler, but Boxleitner is really good all the way through. Amusing, wry, suitably annoyed. His performance in this episode is his best yet, I’d say.

There’s an amazing edit in this episode, when Sheridan has finally had enough of the rent situation. Ivanova asks “well, what are you going to do about it?”, and the scene cuts abruptly to the assembly of a bunch of weapons. It’s hilarious but not overplayed. B5 hasn’t played with editing in that way before, that I can recall.

Another excellent scene is with Delenn and Sheridan, when she asks him out for dinner. At first Sheridan is irritated by the conversation, still in his ‘I don’t like Minbari’ mentality, and his disbelief at where the conversation ends up is a joy to watch.

Good stuff.

Next up is ‘Soul Mates’.

‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️

We get our first proper (I think?) view of Mars. It sets the tone for season 4.

There’s a lot more Psi Corps/Psi Cop stuff in this, and we also get a much better sense of how telepathy works in B5. The interrogation opening, the dropping of ‘the walls’ to hear the background chatter, the trick at the end: it really fills out the concept of being a telepath in this story.

Talia’s extra powers come slightly more into focus for the first time since ‘Mind War’: it’s odd that this has been such an underdeveloped plotline, and getting more info on how the Psi Corps has been experimenting is juicy stuff. While Talia’s storyline comes to an abrupt end, a lot of the threads and world building going on here will continue into Lyta’s arc.

Delenn and Sheridan’s relationship begins to form, and the actors play it wonderfully in this episode. Natural chemistry, and not overplaying it.

What did I miss? Feel like I missed something. Anyway, it’s a solid, captivating episode, I thought.