Babylon 5: A Voice in the Wilderness

[Archanubis]

"The conclusion comes... in two days.

Tease.

[Darth Wedgius]

A little bit of trivia -- IMDB says that the money shot in this one was an homage to a similar scene in "Forbidden Planet".

[Durandal_1707]

What? How could you possibly not even mention the "Ivanova is God" speech?

gets to the "moment of Zen" at the end

Oh, never mind. Carry on.

[MyUserName]

I always liked this two parter. We get multiple plot threads, all of them important in one way or another, and the pacing, plotting, and acting are all at a high point considering some of the lows of season one.

And yes, the Ivonova is god speech. It really should have won this show an award of some kind or another.

[Zoinksberg]

A little bit of trivia -- IMDB says that the money shot in this one was an homage to a similar scene in "Forbidden Planet".

Then they would be happy to know it worked as that was exactly what I was thinking when I saw it during the review.

[SlackerinDeNile]

The bit with Garibaldi and his 'magic trick' is endearingly cheesy, it's like something out of a bad, loose-cannon cop film. Regarding Garibaldi's aggression, I always felt he was quite over the top in season 1, I know it's not exactly unrealistic for a police officer and his character is similar to a typical Bruce Willis one (due to the similarities his actor has to him) but it seemed like he was smacking and threatening around just about every guest actor.

Overall I like this episode as well, for reasons that some of you have already shared. The alien in the great machine felt a bit Trek like in terms of their appearance, lines and acting though but I guess that's something B5 has just had to make do with due to its budget.

I heard ages ago that one of the planned TV movies for TNT was originally supposed to be about the builders of the great machine returning for some reason (the aliens in this episode never built it but looked after it for generations or something) but apparently that got scrapped, I think that was the original concept for Thirdspace before they settled on something more 'high-concept' and easier to digest for new viewers (not that I dislike Thirdspace, it's great), but that could just be fan-wank on my part.

A little bit of trivia -- IMDB says that the money shot in this one was an homage to a similar scene in "Forbidden Planet".

JMS said so as well, it's not exactly news to anyone who has seen Forbidden planet.

[Shuboy07]

Darn IT, Chuck! I've got Power of Love stuck in my head... again.

Besides the later Babylon 4 episodes, did the Great Machine ever get used again?

[J!!]

As I recall, they used it to transmit their 'voice of the resistence' broadcasts during the civil war, but for much else. Which seems a pretty huge waste of a very powerful assett, now that I think about it.

[RobbyB1982]

As I recall, they used it to transmit their 'voice of the resistence' broadcasts during the civil war, but for much else. Which seems a pretty huge waste of a very powerful assett, now that I think about it.

Back when JMS answered all sorts of questions, he said they reason they didn't really use it is because it was an ace in the hole... you don't want to let the enemy (the shadows, earth, etc) know you have something like that, so its not something they called on every week to do any given thing... nor was it the planet's job to cover their butts.

It never got any real big action payoffs to reward holding that card, but I'm pretty sure it was used to do the timetravel in War Without End. It's also how they got confirmation that the presidential assassination wasn't an accident.

So it got used as a resource, just never really as a weapon.

[Durandal_1707]

It also got used to contact the other Great Old Ones to get them to join the resistance, didn't it?