A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

I'd say Season 4 is the only season of Babylon 5 without any true standalone episodes... although some episodes are less important for the overall arc than others.

 

The whole electricity and shooting was just for cracking the encounter suit of Kosh 2.0 (Ulkesh). After that Kosh 1.0 joined the fight yeah but I wonder if Lorien also helped during struggle against Kosh 2.0 with his powers ( except resurrecting Sheridan later on )

Speaking of Sheridan. He had a "larger than life" , "nobler than petty things" image in this last two episodes , do you agree ? When he spoke against League Ambassadors in "Summoning" and here in this episode helping the woman who lost her husband at the beginning I got that image. Maybe learning that he had only 20 years to live had that effect on people. He arranged his priorities and it appeared he had a motive and a purpose...

 

Definitely! This resurrected Sheridan is a lot more sharper, focused and he makes difficult choices faster than ever before. Basically he is ready for anything. Killing Ulkesh is a pretty clear indication that he won't take shit from anyone.

 

The whole season is certainly not like this - There are a few 'normal' episodes in the middle of the season. But season 4 starts and concludes at a very intense pace.

 

The whole plot to kill Kosh Vader was always overcomplicated from the start. They could have just skipped the lightshow and used the poison the minbari used against Kosh I.

 

^^^ Wouldn't have worked. That only worked because Kosh opened his suit and was available for direct contact with the poison. Ulkesh would never have done that.

 

Did you notice the dent? (DVD commentary joke)

 

There was no way Kosh II was going to stick any part of his body outside of that encounter suit, and if someone walked up with poison and tried to open the suit he wouldn't think twice about killing him. He doesn't have the sympathy of Kosh I that would make him think twice about it. The only way he didn't know this was coming was because of the unexpected million volts through him.

The final battle was only between the Vorlons, and they both go up with the ship. There's nothing of them left, so I don't think Lorien was involved. He was busy making sure Sheridan was OK.

 

Interesting bit-o-trivia: Ulkesh's ship isn't as dead as it looks. It crops up again later in a short story called "Hidden Agendas" written by Strazynski, set in early season 5. I shan't spoil the details as it involves...well saying what and/or who it involves is a spoiler too, so if you're desperate to know, you'll have to go read it!

 

It's a good exercise in Google-Fu.

 

Oops, hadn't seen the episode recently. Lorien did say some of him was there in the battle.

I wonder how that works since Delenn says in Interludes and Examinations that a Vorlon ship can't live without the corresponding Vorlon, and Ulkesh/Kosh II seems quite dead here in this episode.

 

^It got better.

 

Maybe Ulkesh's ship didn't like him as much as Kosh's liked him.

 

Wouldn't surprise me, nobody liked that guy.Maybe Ulkesh was a back-seat driver or didn't feed it very often...That or the reforming process reset it's programming so it wasn't bonded to anyone.

 

The ship probably even helped Kosh to get rid of that arrogant bastard.

 

I always got the impression that Kosh Naranek was the bleeding heart hippy rep of his culture. That is why he was B5 rep, because he liked it there. I thought Ulkesh may have been more representative of his race and their general attitude towards others. But he may have been the opposite extreme, a great big dickhead, that even the other Vorlons thought when they saw him coming, "Man, what an asshole." That may have been why he got the assignment, because the others wanted to send his ass away.

 

Do Vorlons have assholes?
Philosophical question for the day.

 

At least one but Kosh killed him.

 

The Long Night (****)

These episodes are really hard to talk about due to the serialisation, it's difficult to remember what plot developments happened when, and scoring episodes is hard because I'm scoring part of a story without knowing how it will pay off in the next episode. Where to begin?

Well, Cartagia is dead, which is good because his shtick was getting old. It was good that Vir was the one to kill him instead of Londo, it provided Vir with a very good scene later in the episode. Actually, that was one of my favourite scenes in the show so far, which makes me feel a little ill because it was focused on Vir. When people told me that Vir would become a good character I refused to believe them, I thought they were probably on drugs, but they were right. Either that or somebody has been slipping something into my drinks.

G'Kar, who I'm going to call G'Sus for this episode, also had a good scene at the end where he imparts the wisdom given to him by Kosh v1.01. It was a bit silly for that dumb Narn guy to question what G'Sus went through when he was standing there with one of his eyes ripped out, he didn't think that one through at all.

Meanwhile, Sheridan kills Bryan Cranston because he's envious of his Emmys. Apparently there's going to be a big blowout in the next episode where the Vorlons, Shadows and everyone else are going to meet up and kill one another. Or something. I know that the Shadow war is going to end this season, but is it going to end now or is this going to be one step on the road to victory? Will the Vorlons destroy Centauri Prime, or can history be changed? Will Garibaldi have a good night's sleep and stop acting so grumpy? I guess I'll find out tonight.

 

Vir being Centauri's savior, however reluctantly, has to be one of the greatest developments B5 ever did. Plus, the fact probably only Londo will know of this. It frankly stunned me good, and this from a series that I figured couldn't stun me no more given how much stunning had occurred in S3.

Anyhow, glad to see you're back grinding that poundstone for this thread.