Babylon 5: A Race Through Dark Places

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A Race Through Dark Places

I think, if the show was to portray the telepath minority, they should have hired more actors/extras like the ones portrayed here. Scared people, on the run, who look like they've been through hell. As opposed to the group we saw in season 5, who looked like they just came from the salon after a nice shopping spree for the nicest of Goth fashions.

Regarding this episode, I love it as an episode, but am annoyed that it doesn't really affect the status quo, aside from Talia and Ivanova getting closer, as this should be a point of no return regarding Sheridan, Franklin, and Earth. If they're really making a stand against Earth regarding the injustices against telepaths, they need to start making serious actions on helping the telepath minority. As opposed to what we got, which was that they went to business as usual, and never really talked about it aside from when they went to drug addicted Franklin for resources on finding telepaths. For some reason, when B5 is independent in season 3, they don't become a station house for telepaths to flee to for freedom.

Just imagine having convoys of human telepaths fleeing Earth running to B5, since they ARE outside of Earth's jurisdiction, and can live a somewhat better life there. Plus, it would nicely dovetail with the Narn and how those Sheridan helped out because he's a moral person help him in return against the Shadows.

[Mecha82]

To me Bester is one of those fun to watch villains and one that also believes what he is doing is right. In that sense he is kinda like Magneto from X-Men but without any moments of heroism and being more morally grey. So to me every time he is on screen is pure awesomeness so I am biased when it comes to every episode that he is in.

[Nealithi]

I think the reason this feels underwhelming to Chuck is the B plot seems to be retreading a former A plot but not with the same gravitas.

The episode By Any Means Necessary showed that the Earth Alliance is not the Federation. They cut corners on equipment quality, worker safety, and then negotiate from threatening positions. And are more than willing to use violence on their own citizens. But Sinclair uses the very rules to come to a good solution. It irks some of those in power. But shows the kind of man he is.

Here it is penny pinching bureaucracy leading to knock knock jokes. But shows Sheridan will also be creative with rules to do things right. And it feels weak. Both on its own and by comparison.

The A plot in this episode had a great bit of world building with Garibaldi explaining how the people made the very problem they feared. The runaways managed to show how horrid the Corps can be. But they left Bester as a mustache twirling villain instead of someone with a different point of view. The later Bester would have tried to bring those runaways back. Not gun them down. Because in his eyes they are his people. His last episode showed he had what TVTropes calls Blue and Orange morality as opposed to the usual black and white. So his characterization is a little weak. Honestly I think instead of an illusion of him gunning the runaways down. He should either have just missed them as they manage to sneak away. Or the illusion that they over powered the command staff and forced their way out. Then he could not tell if the memories of the command staff were real or implanted. And would run off to find where they went. Basically given a false trail to follow. Not as neat and tidy a resolution. But it would have allowed for a scene where before leaving he talks to Talia about what they told her. And lets him give his own version of the same events. Like the one who died after getting their sleeper drugs? Was not assassinated, but committed suicide because of how the drugs hurt them. The woman forced to have a child and the child taken from her? Was already pregnant and acting irrationally. The parent was offered chances to visit her child but didn't.
Which version is true? To Bester the versions he would have. The Corps may not be nice. But people like Bester believe in it.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah, Bester as a character has just never worked for me. And I'm sad that the femslash didn't really go anywhere.

[Steve]

While this was earlier in his career, Peter David's primary background as a comic book writer sometimes bleeds into his other works. It's why I stopped reading his Star Trek: New Frontier series.

Also, let's face it, JMS sorta dropped the ball on the telepath storyline, and depicting them as an abused minority. And that translated into the main characters starting to treat telepaths like crap. Lyta, for instance, who saved their asses repeatedly, goes through the same thing Sheridan and Ivanova did in this episode, being kicked out of her quarters because "Oh, the station's in a tight budget and we need the bigger quarters for revenue", but nobody - not even Zack, who's secretly pining for her - goes to her defense and insists on giving her a break out of gratitude. Instead she gets both pulled back into the Corps (albeit in secret) in order to make ends meet and ultimately is put back into danger on the missions to Mars (where she has to help kill thirty civilian telepaths used as living weapons for Sheridan's gambit against Lefcourt's fleet, although here I give Sheridan credit for admitting it was "the hardest decision I ever made". Nice to see that he doesn't commit war crimes lightly).

Then Byron and his little cult come, and they offer her the companionship she's aching for. One of them dies saving Sheridan's life, and Sheridan... promptly just sits to the side and does nothing when Bester comes for them. It's Lochley who steps up and prevents them from being marched off to the camps. We don't even get a scene where Sheridan, say, has President Luchenko threaten to rally the ISA Council against him if he interferes because it would be an intervention in an internal Earth matter. Nothing to show why his hands are suddenly tied. Just "Sheridan sits on his ass". It's no wonder Byron escalated to blackmail.

It gets better post-Telepath War, right? Well, except for all telepaths everywhere being subjected to yearly intense, uncomfortable scans by nameless government officials to ensure they're not breaking rules that are virtually impossible for telepaths to avoid breaking unless they live as hermits away from non-telepaths, in a system custom-designed to allow the powers that be to "keep the telepaths in their place" if they don't like their positions (like Matheson as an XO on Excalibur).

Sometimes I think JMS wrote telepaths without actually thinking through the mechanics of his creation, and entirely from the non-telepath POV. Hence "a telepath reading any thoughts is a violation of a non-telepath unless they say yes", although it's openly shown that telepathy is a passive sense, so it's like walking around people who shout to the world every random thought they have but declare it a violation of their mental privacy if you respond to what they're shouting. (Also, as Chuck pointed out, this effect let Garibaldi effectively stalk and sexually harass Talia without any clear ramifications to himself).

[Steve]

Yeah, Bester as a character has just never worked for me. And I'm sad that the femslash didn't really go anywhere.

Bester gets better in later episodes, when he's more of a recurring character.

As for the Talia/Ivanova ship sinking just as it left harbor, I've heard two stories on why Andrea Thompson left. One is that she wanted more screentime, JMS said no, and she left over it.

The other has been removed because I've yet to find sources to give it any credit.

[Wargriffin]

Damn that Cosby burn

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah, Bester as a character has just never worked for me. And I'm sad that the femslash didn't really go anywhere.

Bester gets better in later episodes, when he's more of a recurring character.

I've seen the later episodes, and no matter what they TRY to do with him he's always the same sack of malignent cherry pits to me. Attempts to make his character sympathetic or explore his motivations just turned out feeling tacked-on and inconsistent, maybe because he could never get to the end of the episode without doing a mustache-twirl to remind us that he's still very evil.

[Marveryn]

we know he is a loving husband. So that his only weakness is his wife and children. Something Sheridan exploited in later season

[CareerKnight]

And I'm sad that the femslash didn't really go anywhere.

Considering when this was made I would say it went pretty damn far, JMS got a lot of flak for just implying that the two slept together.

Also, let's face it, JMS sorta dropped the ball on the telepath storyline, and depicting them as an abused minority. And that translated into the main characters starting to treat telepaths like crap. Lyta, for instance, who saved their asses repeatedly, goes through the same thing Sheridan and Ivanova did in this episode, being kicked out of her quarters because "Oh, the station's in a tight budget and we need the bigger quarters for revenue", but nobody - not even Zack, who's secretly pining for her - goes to her defense and insists on giving her a break out of gratitude. Instead she gets both pulled back into the Corps (albeit in secret) in order to make ends meet and ultimately is put back into danger on the missions to Mars (where she has to help kill thirty civilian telepaths used as living weapons for Sheridan's gambit against Lefcourt's fleet, although here I give Sheridan credit for admitting it was "the hardest decision I ever made". Nice to see that he doesn't commit war crimes lightly).

Then Byron and his little cult come, and they offer her the companionship she's aching for. One of them dies saving Sheridan's life, and Sheridan... promptly just sits to the side and does nothing when Bester comes for them. It's Lochley who steps up and prevents them from being marched off to the camps. We don't even get a scene where Sheridan, say, has President Luchenko threaten to rally the ISA Council against him if he interferes because it would be an intervention in an internal Earth matter. Nothing to show why his hands are suddenly tied. Just "Sheridan sits on his ass". It's no wonder Byron escalated to blackmail.

I won't argue that the telepath story was handled well but I would like to point out a few things. First, they didn't kick Lyta out on the street. They moved her to smaller quarters but its implied that they are still waving the rent since she doesn't have a job or income (you're still free to argue that its a dick move). Second she didn't rejoin the corp in secret as that would have kind of defeated the whole point in rejoining in the first place (as no company was willing to hire a non corp approved tp). Third, Sheridan "sits on his ass" because he feels interfering with how EarthGov runs things again would be "going to far" for many people after what he had already done. We don't get any grand scene of it cause Sheridan already knows that it would likely backfire horribly so having someone point out what he already knows would come across as padding in a storyline that was already having problems due to being stretched out.