Babylon 5

[Guy Gardener]

Clarke could have been like Londo.

He wanted something small, that seemed affordable at first.

"the ascension of the ordinary man"

The coded note at the end, might have been a warning to his "friends", despite a keeper.

Drugs on Babylon 5...

Stims, slappers and morph gas and Dust?

Can telepaths see keepers?

Londo's wives would have to have been conditioned to accept the co-opting influence of the Keeper on their Empire... Could Londo's keeper keep those women in check too, or were each handled in their own way too?

Clarke could not have a keeper if the Psi Corps was always there.

The Shadows couldn't even keep hostages off sight, but then the Shadows controlled the Corps, didn't they?

 

[Jan]

He wasn't a character, he got maybe one scene with real dialog and then we don't even see him until his last scene where he commits suicide. It's implied via his "Secret Message" that he was under the control of a Keeper and his note was his way of warning people what the Keeper made him do, but it's just a theory.

Never any implication that Clark had a Keeper. This is what JMS said in the script books about his suicide:

First, President Clark’s death is clearly meant to hearken back to the death
of Adolph Hitler, both in terms of his suicide and the scorched Earth policy. In
the final days of World War Two, Hitler gave orders that anything left of
Germany that had not already been bombed into dust should be destroyed,
burned to the ground. It was only due to the decision of his subordinates not to
implement that order that even more lives were not lost in those final days.

 

[Anwar]

Okay then, guess that settles that. There was a B5 episode guide book that offered it as one theory and I figured that's what the show was going for, because it just seemed so random that he'd hide a message that way unless something was stopping him from outright saying it.

And we knew the Shadows/Drakh used Keepers on other rulers like the Centauri Regent.

 

[DonIago]

The Keepers seem to have been more a Drakh thing than a Shadow thing; I'm not aware of an instance of them being used while the Shadows were still around...which could be construed as more evidence that Clark wasn't under the influence of a Keeper, since he'd been recruited by Morden.

It could be an argument that the Drakh never quite lived up to their former masters...the Shadows didn't need Keepers to encourage people to do what they wanted, while the Drakh needed the iron fist in addition to the velvet glove.

 

[JD]

Him being such a cipher is a point against the storyline though.

Then again, everyone who opposes the Protagonists always either realizes they were wrong and joins them or is just evil. They can't just be wrong or have valid reasons for opposing them.

It's been a while since I watched the show, but I don't remember wanting to see more of Clark. From what I remember, it felt like it more about the effect Clark's actions were having on the characters, than on Clark himself.

 

[Xerxes82]

The Shadows using Keepers doesn't make any sense, on Clarke or anybody else. The entire point of the ideological battle between the Shadows and the Vorlons is that the people working with them had to CHOOSE them over the Vorlons, willingly. People could be persuaded, cajoled, even manipulated but at the end of the day the choice, as it was for Clarke and Londo, had to be theirs.

The Drakh don't have that limitation. They share the core ideology of the Shadows, chaos and eternal war as a means of determining the strong, but they lack the sibling rivalry that underpins the Shadow/Vorlon conflict. Instead, they are driven by hate/vengeance against the races that drove away their masters, and are thus without scruples when it comes to getting what they want. Keepers make a ton of sense for the Drakh.

 

[Reverend]

Clark didn't need a Keeper anymore than Londo did (during the war.) The Shadows leveraged his greed, ego, and ambition to be one of their agents of chaos, just like they did with Londo (and knock Psi-Corp out of the Vorlon side of the war in the process.)
I get the sense that Keepers were mostly used for sleeper agents and assassins (as with Captain Jack), and only deployed against high profile targets when their cooperation was not forthcoming and replacing them would have been counterproductive.

Indeed it's implied in 'Z'Ha'Dum' that they intended to control Sheridan by putting him through the process of becoming a Shadow Vessel CPU. Essentially putting him through a death of personality, meaning they considered that to be a much more effective (and less crude?) way of directly controlling someone than a Drakh Keeper. Of course they still tried persuasion first.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Of course they still tried persuasion first.

And Sheridan shoved a Nuke up their arse for trying that =D

 

[David cgc]

Let’s unpack that idea for a minute. Processing someone for a Shadow ship guarantees compliance, but it isn’t very convincing. We saw that in the episode itself, where Sheridan saw through Anna’s act, and it was reinforced in the third Technomage novel, where we got actual scenes of Morden taking Anna through Shadow Charm School trying to teach her how to act like the real Anna (while she asked reasonable questions like, “If John doesn’t do what I want because of Delenn, why don’t I simply kill them both with my powerful energy beams?”).

On the other hand, Justin also argues that killing Sheridan is their worst option, because Ivanova, Delenn, or Garibaldi could fill the void left behind. A Keeper would allow for a more authentic performance, but Sheridan trusts the people around him in a way Londo can’t, and he has a quicker willingness to die for his cause than, say, Captain Jack. If Sheridan did get a Keeper, he’d resist enough that it’d be forced to kill him immediately, he wouldn’t have any reason to try and make the best of it like Londo did because he knew Durla would be a more harmful emperor on every level. Even as a Shadow-ship zombie, on the other hand, a fully-controlled Sheridan would be able to ruin his reputation and shatter the Army of Light, even if the people closest to him could tell something was off and he only had a couple days to do it before he was found out.

 

[Reverend]

It's also worth remembering that by this point the Shadows had a foothold in Psi-Corps, where they didn't so much yet when Anna was taken, and presumably not quite by the time they pulled her out.
Psi-Corps are experts at building and rebuilding convincing human personalities for nefarious purpose. It's entirely possible the Shadows might have employed their services for this purpose. Indeed this is exactly how Garabaldi ends up being Bester's pawn; the Shadows nabbed him, sent him to Psi-Corps, only for Bester's faction to intercept him and take him away from the Clarke loyalists. Given all that happens right when the attempt to turn Sheridan fails, makes this seem all the more likely as their plan-B

Even if that's not the case; Anna's behaviour was only unconvincing to John because that's literally his wife. That makes him by far the hardest person to fool. Nobody on the station knows Sheridan *quite* that well besides perhaps Delenn, but sabotaging that relationship would have been right at the top of the to-do list anyway (possibly by arranging a "tragic accident".) Garabaldi, Ivanova & Franklin would have noticed something was off sooner or later, but they could easily be isolated, ostracised, and/or expelled while maintaining Sheridan's authority and influence. Enough for him to be able to tear down the coalition, and possibly discredit himself in the process. By that point, it wouldn't matter if anyone figures out what happened to him, the die would already be cast.

 

[Dee1891]

It's been a while since I watched the show, but I don't remember wanting to see more of Clark. From what I remember, it felt like it more about the effect Clark's actions were having on the characters, than on Clark himself.

That is why I have always found Clark such an interesting villain. I thought he was a monster, despite being barely seen on the screen. Watching the consequences and effects of his actions made him very believable as a villain to me.

 

[Farscape One]

It's also pretty true to life. We rarely get to see the reasons or machinatioms of why people do the things they do. Corporate CEOs, politicians, etc.

 

[BlueStuff]

"Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

It was always going to be a letdown following that episode - and that's what this one was.

Didn't care for the wildly varying tones split between the three subplots. The most interesting, the buildup to the rebirth ceremony, featured some enjoyable character beats (loved Marcus' backstory and Londo's dismissal of the entire affair: "I was picturing debauchery - I forgot I was speaking to Minbari!") but the crew removing their uniforms and revealing their secrets wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Garibaldi is afraid of "letting go." Franklin has a drug problem. Sheridan loves Delenn a lot. Lennier "loves" Delenn too. Ivanova loved Talia. On the other hand, I kinda liked those new uniforms.

Second subplot - Delenn gets kidnapped by Nightwatch nutters, including body part song singing and crappy fighting psycho, was tired and lacked tension. Seriously, how'd that guy fail to dodge Sheridan's punches? They had longer windups than in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

Third, the "funny" AI - the less said about that the better.

Not one of my favourites.

Rating: **

-Londo's poisoning (assuming he was telling the truth) and manipulation of Refa was about the only interesting development. Will Refa comply?

 

[DonIago]

^At least one reviewer made a really good point about the Nightwatch folks in this episode...to this point, at least half the reason why Nightwatch was a compelling interest was because it could be anyone, and because even well-intentioned people could get sucked into it (as shown).

Having these nutters be part of Nightwatch devalued all of that in favor of making them petty thugs.

 

[Gov Kodos]

It's not to me. I don't expect fascists to be psychologically complex, because frankly they usually aren't. Television drama does not have an obligation to paint fascists are more complex than they actually are in real life.

Earth was building up an entirely racist and xenophobic hate for all aliens from the outset. Clark was at the forefront of the Earth first and damn all the aliens and alien lovers. It makes the events on Mars interesting for the number of characters who came from Mars colonies or had been stationed there for lengthy stays that they generally had less fondness for Earth and those policies of Clark's which often set them against the business corporations which were often pro-Earth.

There is a lot that can easily be inferred about Clark. He is hardly a cypher. He is a racist and xenophobic a-hole who likely got his start out of the paranoia against aliens in the wake of the Earth/Minbari war. He likely jumped at the chance to gain advanced tech from the Shadows because he felt Earth was at a true disadvantage in the galaxy much like the right wing was paranoid in Germany after WW1. He capitalized on the fear of super advanced races like the Minbari, the Shadows likely didn't even have to convince him to their ideology. Clark was a true believer in being the stronger justifies all action and weakness is a natural death sentence.

The theme most strongly evident in the show is the danger of racism, the evils that the pursuit of racial purity engender, and only seeing how we are all one collective sentient culture in the galaxy where true respect for life is to respect all lives.

 

[Jan]

A couple of items related to the show.

First, Production Designer John Iacovvelli has passed away at 64 from cancer. He had and incredible career in TV, movies and the stage.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...5/john-iacovelli-dead-set-designer-la-theater
JMS wrote:

Devastated today to learn of the passing of John Iacovelli, art director/production designer for Babylon 5 and a ton of other stuff. He was a good and kind and talented man. If DP John Flinn was the heart of the shooting company, Iacovelli was its soul.

Second, for anybody interested, JMS will be appearing at the Phoenix Fan Fusion con June 2-4.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Earth was building up an entirely racist and xenophobic hate for all aliens from the outset. Clark was at the forefront of the Earth first and damn all the aliens and alien lovers. It makes the events on Mars interesting for the number of characters who came from Mars colonies or had been stationed there for lengthy stays that they generally had less fondness for Earth and those policies of Clark's which often set them against the business corporations which were often pro-Earth.

There is a lot that can easily be inferred about Clark. He is hardly a cypher. He is a racist and xenophobic a-hole who likely got his start out of the paranoia against aliens in the wake of the Earth/Minbari war. He likely jumped at the chance to gain advanced tech from the Shadows because he felt Earth was at a true disadvantage in the galaxy much like the right wing was paranoid in Germany after WW1. He capitalized on the fear of super advanced races like the Minbari, the Shadows likely didn't even have to convince him to their ideology. Clark was a true believer in being the stronger justifies all action and weakness is a natural death sentence.

The theme most strongly evident in the show is the danger of racism, the evils that the pursuit of racial purity engender, and only seeing how we are all one collective sentient culture in the galaxy where true respect for life is to respect all lives.

Decades before this episode, the voice of the computer was locked into Gene Roddenberry's office, and told to work. Rebelliously like a child, rather than finishing the script he owed Star Trek, Sparky ate a pot plant on Gene's desk.

...

I'm suddenly wondering if I am remembering this story wrong? Was it a potted plant or pot?

Eating an inedible potted plant is hilarious.

Stealing a famous person's weed is incorrigable.

 

[JD]

Second, for anybody interested, JMS will be appearing at the Phoenix Fan Fusion con June 2-4.

Claudia Christian will be there too.

 

[Jan]

Claudia Christian will be there too.

Sorry, should have mentioned that. Also Walter Koenig is scheduled.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

JMS teased impending news for next week along with a new variation of the classic logo.