The Corps is Mother The Corps is Father (B5)

[MadAmosMalone]

http://sfdebris.com/videos/babylon5/b5s5e13.php

Completely agree with Chuck here, this ep is a standout among S5 offerings. It also fits a certain theme that I've noticed in the series overall, that being that a "monster doesn't see a monster when he looks in the mirror." This ep helps us to see how Bester sees himself. I also think it provides a real counter-point to the last season's story with William Edgars and his efforts to look out for non-telepaths but by murdering and subjugating telepaths. Haven't seen this episode in quite a while, I often skip S5 on my re-watches of the show, but I do remember I liked this episode for the same reasons Chuck did.

[Durandal_1707]

Yeah, using telepathy to clean house on blackjack, which 1) doesn't require telepathy at all, just memorization skills, and therefore 2) causes casinos to keep an eye out for card counters, meaning that you're in danger of getting your kneecaps broken... doesn't seem like a great plan.

[MadAmosMalone]

Maybe it's some kinda "future" blackjack where being a teep, and drinking Zima of course, is actually beneficial to the player?

[Fixer]

Like the review said. It was a clue that he was using his mind ripping powers Sylar style to get awesome blackjack skills.

[Durandal_1707]

I know, but it seems like a convoluted way to go about it, especially since with other games, he could use his telepathic skills to beat the game in ways the casino isn't probably used to looking for.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

*sigh*
I just...I just don't see the appeal of Bester. I can see all the effort that goes into making him a nuanced, well-written, and effective villain, but in the end, I just feel annoyance towards him at best and indifference at worst.
This episode, I just shrugged and said "It figures". It added nothing to Bester for me. Every time the show tries to delve into Bester, it just leaves me cold.

[G-Man]

An interesting fact from the episode - jump points (I am assuming you can say that a jump gate opens a jump point) going into hyperspace are red both in normal space and in hyperspace. We have seen previously that jump points going back into normal space, while blue in normal space, are red in hyperspace. But in hyperspace, jump points are always red, no matter what direction they go in.

[CareerKnight]

With some background knowledge its not hard to figure out why S5 was overall a let down. First you have season four absorbing all of the Earth arc out of fear of cancellation. Then you have the departure of a popular character and have to spend the season with her replacement, who has an uphill battle to prove to the fans that she deserves to be there. Finally, JMS lost his notes on the season before he started to write it so he had to recall a lot of what he had planned to from memory while trying to stretch it out to make up for what S4 ended up getting. Most of this stretching was apparently taken up by the Byron stuff, aka what a lot of people disliked the most about S5 in part because it went on too long.

And all that doesn't even include the fact that most of the driving story arcs of the show had concluded at that point.

[G-Man]

The problem with the Byron stuff was (a) Byron was not a charismatic figure. It's as if a cult were led by the guy from <i>Animal House</i> who had his guitar smashed by Bluto. (b) We were teased with the Telepath War, and this was essentially a side story to that, and did not actually lead anywhere.

[ScreamingDoom]

The problem with the Byron stuff was (a) Byron was not a charismatic figure. It's as if a cult were led by the guy from <i>Animal House</i> who had his guitar smashed by Bluto. (b) We were teased with the Telepath War, and this was essentially a side story to that, and did not actually lead anywhere.

While those are definitely problems, I think an additional one was that no one called Byron on his bullshit. Not even Garibaldi.

His argument is that because the Vorlons made telepaths for the younger races to fight the Shadows, they were owed some sort of compensation by those younger races. This is absurd because:

1) No race that was altered had any sort of say on what the Vorlons decided to do, so they are not culpable. If he wants to complain, then complain to the Vorlons. What? They're gone? And wouldn't even listen if they weren't? Tough. Life isn't fair.

2) Byron and his little cult didn't even fight in the Shadow War. They were too busy hiding from the Psi Corps and having terrible fashion sense. So even if you accept Byron's deranged logic as sound on the point that telepaths in general are owed something, it still only applies to those telepaths who actually fought the Shadows. They were the one doing the job for which they were designed, so they would get any compensation.

That no one brings this up just makes all the regular characters look stupid by association.

Another thing that was aggravating is that the obvious solution was never ventured. Byron and his Space Amish telepaths want their own planet? Fine. Give them Markab. It's a grave world, doesn't have a jump gate any more, and has already been picked clean by space scavengers. No one wants to go there, there no longer anything of reasonable value, and no one wants a world that isolated. They'd be knee-deep in rotting plague victims that they have to clean up, but hey. Beggars can't be choosers.