s3e21: Shadow Dancing
I want to do it again!
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This and the next episode are almost a 2-parter, flowing into one another. ‘Shadow Dancing’ is a big one, and yet B5 is putting out episodes like this on a regular basis now, to the point that I’m taking them for granted.
Back in season 1, this episode would have been impossible. Even season 2 would have struggled to pull it together, from both a story and production standpoint. The show has continually one-upped itself, continually raising the bar and pushing the edges of what is possible on a (relatively small) TV budget and schedule.
Season 3 has been a big shift in overall production ambition. We’ve had ‘Messages from Earth’, with its Jupiter sequence. ‘Severed Dreams’ pulled off an all-time classic space battle and ground battle. ‘War Without End’ pulled off an absurdly audacious storytelling sleight of hand. ‘Shadow Dancing’ is another leap forward, accelerating the Shadow War plot to all-out conflict that in any other show or movie would be the big finale.
I do wish the battle with the Shadows had a bit more breathing space: there are frequently astonishing VFX shots, full of imagination and clear geography and interesting tactics, but they’re all very brief. I’m sure this was a budget and schedule limitation (not to mention 1990s tech!), rather than a style decision, but man: I want more of that Vree ship buzzing about with its insane laser gatling gun. The panicked flip of the Shadow scout after it has a limb sliced off. One of the White Stars doing its cool turn and pivot to evade Shadow fire.
And the single Narn cruiser entering the fray! I’d never quite clocked that before, but it’s a great moment. Revenge for everything the Shadows have done to their homeworld, but also an enormous risk, given their lack of resources.
Where this episode really shines is in remembering to anchor the cool CG whiz-bangs in the human drama. It’s not entirely clear why it has to be Marcus and Ivanova on the White Star scout mission, but it works. During Sheridan’s briefing, I love how Marcus Cole plays is entirely straight, abruptly dropping his usual wisecracks and ‘funny British fella’ act. Marcus knows immediately what’s at stake here. We also get Delenn and Sheridan in the command centre on the Minbari ship, and it’s a bold move to hide some of the cool spaceship stuff behind our actors (the VFX don’t quite hold up, but the sequence does).
Away from the A plot, we have Franklin’s descent. Intercutting his sort-of-resurrection with the birth of the Alliance is a clever move, and it never feels like we’re cutting away from the good stuff to faff about with the doctor. Both plots are strong and balance each other out: the bombast of the Shadow War, and the intimate disaster and determination of Franklin. He hits rock bottom here, and then literally climbs back out. Straczynski has a thing for people failing, then refusing to give up, and clawing their way back to life. This might be the best version of it so far.
Very glad to have the blu-ray versions in this re-watch. The last time I saw this episode was on the DVDs, with the horrible pan-and-scanned composites, which rendered ‘Shadow Dancing’ especially unwatchable. The space battle was massacred, inevitably, but so was Franklin’s meeting himself. Excellent to see it reinstated to a decent quality.
The only mis-step in the episode, I’d say, is the awkward exposition while Sheridan, Ivanova and Delenn try to decode Kosh’s implanted dream. It’s awkward and forced, and sounds like a bunch of alt.babylon5.uk usenet posters analysing the show. That the dream required this explainer speaks to how overly cryptic it was to start with, as I think we covered at the time.
And then we finish with Anna Sheridan rocking up. It’s a great twist, pulling the rug out just as we think we have a handle on the situation. Clever, too, to bring back the ‘War Without End’ flashforward — they don’t dwell on it, so it’s only halfway through you start to think “hang on, have I seen this before?” The memory drops into place just as the door opens.
Next up is ‘Z’ha’dum’.
‼️ SPOILER STUFF ‼️
The exciting thing here is how close we are to a lot of this stuff not being spoilery anymore.
What struck me watching this episode, which I’d never thought about before, is that this is pretty much the last time we see Sheridan like this. He’s become battle hardened over time, of course, but ‘Shadow Dancing’ is the end of John Sheridan’s first life. Next episode he goes to Z’ha’dum, dies, and is reborn, but he’s never quite the same again.
Realising that while watching this time imbued the episode with a new sadness, of what is about to be lost.
Garibaldi also seems increasingly twitchy. A couple more nudges and he’ll be exactly where Bester needs him to be.
The real surprise for me was always that we’re not all that far from the end of the Shadow War. It comes up fast, partly due to season 4’s compression, but also because Babylon 5 isn’t only about fighting space aliens. My teenager brain was startled by that on first watch.
Anyway, season 3 wraps up next week. Exciting!
