Babylon 5: A Voice in the Wilderness

[J!!]

No, I'm pretty sure Ivonova had to go around talking to all those guys in person. When you're a few billion years old, you stop picking up the phone for unknown numbers.

[SlackerinDeNile]

It was used to help find and identify the first ones so they could contact them.
Although Lorien wouldn't have even needed it once he started helping the crew.

[Darth Wedgius]

It was used by Ivanova to gather information on Z'ha'dum, too, IIRC. When the Shadows showed up at B5 at the end of season 3, I think they mentioned that they couldn't contact Draal because of jamming.

To me, it's hard to believe it would have realistically been a secret, and it could have been used at other times when the station came under attack, but wasn't. Maybe it was meant as a reason that the Shadows couldn't just blow up B5, though I think it would have failed in that, too (Shadow ships exits hyperspace on the other side of B5, drops a couple fusion bombs next to the hull, and cackles evilly as it goes back into hyperspace). If they'd made it just another planet in the system, that might have worked better.

I thought it was an entertaining episode, though, and John Schuck as (the second actor too play) Draal would be entertaining in future episodes.

[AlucardNoir]

It's really funny, I saw this before I had ever seen Forbidden Planet and when I rewatched them afterwards... Forbidden Planet just ruined these two episodes for me. It's not the first time a big budget movie ruined part of a TV show for me. Both Tytania and Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars had a few episodes that were a bit to close to already existing IP's (Star Wars comes to mind) that I ended up being more or less meh on both series because of it.

And it's not like I have a problem with unofficial "derivative" works. I have spent two dollars short of $400 on hardcover editions of Jodorowsky's Inca/Metabarons graphic novel series. Hell I'm considering preordering The Metabaron Vol. 3 (...to preorder or not to preorder? that is the question) And what is the Jodoverse if not a Dune knock off. Hell, even as a kid I used to prefer Buratino to Pinocchio. (though that might just be the fact that one is by one of Russia's greatest writers while the other is by a journalist and children's book writer that isn't really remembered for anything else)

But "A Voice in the Wilderness"? JMS is a great writer but this isn't really his best work... not even close. Well, that or Forbidden Planet having become one of my all time favorite SF movies really ruined this episode for me. What should have been an homage appearing nothing more then a pale imitation to a hardcore fan of Forbidden Planet.

[CrypticMirror]

I liked that we got to see a little of what Londo must have been like in his youth, the dashing young Musketeer "D'Artagnan" version of Londo inside his hedonistic and later tragic anti-villain self. I could have watched a B5 prequel about Young Londo.

Looking back this episode also lays the groundwork for Garibaldi falling off the wagon in Season 5. Garibaldi is a control freak, a not uncommon trait in alcoholics, and losing control of his situation tends to send him off the rails; especially when it is stuff he does not have any way to influence. In S5 it is that Bester diddled with his brain and his helplessness manifests in his hitting the bottle again. In this it manifests in him hitting others, but he's got an old friend around in the form of Sinclair to help him and to intervene before he starts hitting the booze. You can see the progression and escalation happening though.

[SuccubusYuri]

I liked that we got to see a little of what Londo must have been like in his youth, the dashing young Musketeer "D'Artagnan" version of Londo inside his hedonistic and later tragic anti-villain self. I could have watched a B5 prequel about Young Londo.

Looking back this episode also lays the groundwork for Garibaldi falling off the wagon in Season 5. Garibaldi is a control freak, a not uncommon trait in alcoholics, and losing control of his situation tends to send him off the rails; especially when it is stuff he does not have any way to influence. In S5 it is that Bester diddled with his brain and his helplessness manifests in his hitting the bottle again. In this it manifests in him hitting others, but he's got an old friend around in the form of Sinclair to help him and to intervene before he starts hitting the booze. You can see the progression and escalation happening though.

Young Londo would be a great series.

As to Garibaldi, that's actually a hindsight point I had in this review: what if this is the moment that Garibaldi comes into PsyCorps' radar? Like that thing Chuck talked about with Baltar and faith in BSG; that there are moments he will make deals he abhors in desperation. We know that it's around this time that Morden is making inroads with Clark back on Earth, no reason to assume any differently of the PsyCorps, and he might just be on a list of potential resources for now, but they almost definitely know of his low opinion of telepaths...through a sleeper agent it can be noted. Just some talent scout noting that an odd request was processed on behalf of Talia, for a guy the PsyCorps might label as a "problem".

Again those are details that didn't get fleshed out til later, I'm sure, but it strikes me as fitting rather elegantly, quietly, into the larger work now that we have the scope.

[SlackerinDeNile]

It's Ron Canada's birthday today.
I disagree with Chuck's assessment of his character in this episode, I thought he gave an excellent performance and his character serves it's intended purpose for the story just fine. He shows the more aggressive, hostile side of the Earth Alliance that were partly responsible for the Earth-Minbari war and would be responsible for much of what happened during Clarke's administration.

Overall I like this episode, it's a solid two-parter, it does a good job setting up material for future storylines and it's certainly better than most of the other season 1 episodes.

[TheGreenMan]

I wonder. If they'd known they'd be getting a 5th season if the Great Machine would have played a big part in a few episodes with the Shadows, or maybe against Earth?

[RobbyB1982]

I wonder. If they'd known they'd be getting a 5th season if the Great Machine would have played a big part in a few episodes with the Shadows, or maybe against Earth?

JMS swears that if they had known 100% they were getting a season 5, it would have basically just pushed the end of season 4 a little bit... "Intersections in Real Time" (or something like it) would have been the end of season 4. A whopping 3 episodes difference.

This would have given them breathing room for those three episodes to be 5 or 6 episodes in season 5 and the Byron arc would have been shorter (And maybe Claudia would have stuck around) and the whole thing would have been likely stronger as a result probably.... but all they did was cut a little bit of filler episodes and those would have been cut from early in the season, not late. At that point in the show, nothing major would have likely changed in terms of big events.


Season 3 however is a completely different matter. War without End in particular, tuned out *completely* different from the original plan, at least partly because of O'Hare's health problems, and partly because it was clearly not going to eventually break into a full blown spinoff and run for 8 or 9 years total.

[Steve]

IIRC, without the ambiguity about getting Season 5, it would have had more of the Earth Civil War and the telepath crisis would've only been a couple of episodes.