This Babylon 5 spinoff deals with the exploits of a Ranger ship, the Excalibur, and its search for the cure to a plague that threatens humanity. David Allen Brooks as Max Eilerson. Gary Cole as (Captain) Matthew Gideon. Jeff Conaway as Zack Allan (rumored). Carrie Dobro as Dureena Nafeel. Marjean Holden as Dr. Susan Chambers. Daniel Dae Kim as Lt. Matheson. Tracy Scoggins as Capt. Elizabeth Lochley. Peter Woodward as Galen.
There were only 13 episodes (of a planned five years) produced due to creative differences between TNT and JMS. Not fair, but there ya have it.
1. RACING THE NIGHT
The crew discovers a planet that was devastated by a
plague similar to the one threatening Earth.
The Shadows used the plague in
the last Shadow War, a thousand years ago. They infected a planet, not yet
technologically advanced enough for starflight, that refused to allow them to
set up a base. After three years of struggling to find a cure, the inhabitants
of that planet froze themselves. Every two years, when the five-year clock
expires, another individual is awakened to guard over the planet. Anyone who
stumbles onto the planet is abducted and dissected in the hopes that they'll
prove immune to the plague and thus show the way to a cure.
Gideon consults
the apocalypse box ("The Path of Sorrows") to find out about new planets to
explore. It knows about worlds the Rangers haven't discovered yet.
2. THE NEEDS OF EARTH
An alien refugee may hold useful secrets about the Drakh plague, but isn't
willing to give up its information easily.
Dureena was sold into slavery by
her parents when she was young. At one point, she was taken to Praxis 9, a seedy
colony outside of Alliance jurisdiction; she may have been auctioned off there.
The Rangers divide their time between enforcing the laws of the Alliance and
searching for information that might help Earth fight the plague.
The
government of Marata 7, a world outside the Alliance, has destroyed all its
people's art and music and literature, on the grounds that it's ideologically
incompatible with the goals of the state. One copy of the planetary archives was
smuggled offworld by a Maratan named Natchok Var; a copy of his copy is now in
the hands of the Excalibur crew.
Gideon told Dureena that slavery was legal
on Praxis 9. But some of the slaves were Drazi, and were thus presumably
Alliance citizens; what, if anything, does the Alliance do when its people are
held by nonmembers? Perhaps slavery is legal among the Drazi as well, and the
Alliance is simply practicing its policy of nonintervention by allowing the
situation to persist.
Notes
Max likes to watch pornography involving
aliens, including titles such as "Snow White and the 7 Narns" and "Who's My
Little Pak'ma'ra."
Gideon's quip about Mozart is originally from Tom
Lehrer's spoken introduction to the song "Alma," which is in his "That Was The
Year That Was" album. In Lehrer's case, however, Mozart had only been dead for
two years.
3. THE MEMORY OF WAR
While exploring the ruins of a long-dead planet, the
crew discovers the remains of a terrible weapon.
About a hundred years ago,
one of two warring parties on a planet hired a technomage to build a weapon. He
designed a virus using nanotechnology that infected the minds of its victims,
causing them to murder each other.
The apocalypse box guided Gideon to the
planet, claiming there was something of value there.
Galen and Dr. Chambers
have adapted a quantity of the nanovirus to form a shield to line the insides of
the lungs; the shield allows someone to enter an area infected with the Drakh
plague for up to about 48 hours without becoming infected themselves.
Why
did the apocalypse box recommend that Gideon not trust Galen? Is it lying to
him? This may be a continuity glitch, a reference to "The Well of Forever." That
episode was produced after this one and was probably originally supposed to take
place later in the series' timeline.
4. THE LONG ROAD
A renegade
technomage stands in the way of a mining operation that could save lives on
Earth. Scott Paetty as Lt. Meyers. Mik Scriba as Barkeep. Marshall Teague as
Capt. Daniels. Edward Woodward as Alwyn.
Galen was taken in by Elric ("The
Geometry of Shadows") after Galen's father died. Elric died shortly after the
technomages reached their hiding place.
Galen isn't the only technomage who
disagrees with the group's decision to go into hiding.
Could Alwyn really
have destroyed ships in orbit? Clearly Gideon's use of the Excalibur's main gun
was the backup plan advocated by Galen, so it's plausible that Alwyn's
preparations were little more than a light show in reality.
Gideon referred
to Alwyn as a technomage while speaking to Captain Daniels; Daniels didn't seem
surprised to hear the term. How widespread is knowledge of the technomages?
5. VISITORS FROM DOWN THE STREET
The Excalibur encounters a pair of
aliens who are convinced that humans have visited their world and their
government has conspired to cover the contact up.
A few hundred years ago,
the inhabitants of an unknown planet began to pick up broadcasts from other
worlds, including Earth. The planet was undergoing a constant series of civil
wars at the time, so its government hatched a plan to create a scapegoat for its
domestic problems: fabricate fake visits by humans and establish the appearance
of a conspiracy to cover up the "truth." The plan worked; when the people
believed that the government was secretly under alien control, revolting no
longer seemed useful, and the civil wars came to an end.
After learning of
that conspiracy, Gideon took the Excalibur to the planet and dropped a series of
probes near several large cities, each containing a copy of the Interstellar
Encyclopedia as well as the details of what he'd learned about the nature of the
coverup.
The alien world must be quite close to Earth. If, as claimed, they
first started picking up human transmissions a couple hundred years before the
encounter with the Excalibur (and assuming the alien year isn't substantially
different than an Earth year) that would mean they first started receiving the
broadcasts no later than about the mid-21st century. That would put their world
within about 150 light-years of Earth, since the first video signals from Earth
were sent in the early 1900s and travelled at lightspeed.
The new telepath
regulations permit Matheson to project thoughts into another being's mind in
life-or-death situations.
Gideon enjoys feeling the wind on his face when
he's visiting a planet. This episode is a parody of the TV series "The X-Files."
References to that show abound:
The subtitle showing the location and time
(Eridani Sector, May 13, 2267 2:37PM EST) is ubiquitous on "The X-Files."
The red color of Lyssa's tentacles suggests Agent Scully's red hair. Cell
phones are a constant presence on "The X-Files."
Kendarr's cigarette
addiction is like that of the Cigarette Smoking Man, one of the heads of the
"X-Files" conspiracy.
The "Y" in masking tape on Durkani's office window is
a reference to the "X" Mulder placed on his window in early "X-Files" episodes
when he wanted to contact Deep Throat.
The alien wearing a human mask under
an alien mask is a reference to the X-Files episode, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer
Space.'"
Arguably, Durkani's name is a variant on "Duchovny."
Durkani's
closing line, "The truth is out..." and Kendarr's conclusion, "...out of
fashion," is a reference to the X-Files tagline, "The Truth is Out There."
In addition, there are references to real-life conspiracy theories:
The
photo of Mount Rushmore is a reference to the Face on Mars.
The report of a
crashed Earth ship, with human bodies taken away and the whole thing explained
away as a weather balloon, is a reference to the crash in Roswell, New Mexico in
1947.
The blimp being dismissed as "swamp gas" mirrors a frequent
explanation for UFO sightings
6. THE WELL OF FOREVER
Galen
convinces Gideon to take the Excalibur deep into hyperspace to find a mythical
place of power.
The Well of Forever is a mausoleum deep in hyperspace, where
various races have left shrines and monuments to their honored dead over the
millenia.
Technomage ships have extremely sensitive sensors that allow them
to navigate much further from hyperspace beacons than Alliance races can. As a
result they're able to travel through hyperspace without encountering others.
At least one race of creatures lives in hyperspace, huge jellyfishlike
creatures called the Fen. The technomages have encountered them before and
consider tham harmless.
Matheson is the first telepath since the abolition
of the Psi Corps to achieve a high-ranking military position. He's thus a
well-known role model among younger telepaths.
The Psi Corps has been
abolished by the Senate and replaced with an organization called the Bureau of
Telepath Integration, which, like the Corps, sends watchmen (all named "Mr.
Jones") around to probe the minds of other telepaths and make sure the new
telepath regulations aren't being violated. The new regulations are aimed at
integrating telepaths into society.
When he was younger, Galen and a
technomage named Isabelle were in love. She devoted her life to finding the Well
of Forever, and when she died, he promised to bring her there.
In the
montage at the end of the episode, Gideon is holding a photograph titled "EAS
Cerberus." That, combined with his comment to Galen that he's already made a
promise to honor the memories of 300 people, suggests that he was the only
survivor when his ship was destroyed nine years earlier ("War Zone").
The
Psi Corps may have vanished in name, but its spirit appears to be alive and well
if Mr. Jones is any indication; he was just as willing as any Psi Cop to abuse
his authority. It's even possible he was a Psi Cop when the Corps was still
around.
The new rules regarding telepaths are presumably the result of the
Telepath War, and it can be deduced that after the war, the Senate decided that
keeping telepaths segregated in their own shadow society was partly to blame for
the conflict.
The fact that there are watchmen like Mr. Jones suggests that
telepaths are probably still required to register with the government.
Who
was Gideon playing chess with? He made his move from the side of the board,
rather than the front or back; perhaps he's playing solo. If so, an obvious
question is whether the board is a metaphor for something.
The game may
relate to his answer to Galen's final question ("Who do you serve and who do you
trust?") Gideon may not be sure whose side he's on.
7. EACH NIGHT I
DREAM OF HOME
The Excalibur is sent on a top-secret mission and faces an
attack by the Drakh.
12 members of the Senate were offworld when the Drakh
attacked Earth. They now act as Earth's official representatives.
The plague
isn't a virus, but rather a nanotechnological device. It appears to be able to
coordinate its actions across wide distances, and may even have a sort of
hive-mind consciousness.
The plague has already started killing people on
Earth. It is constantly reshaping itself, and sometimes happens to find a
lethal, but not genocidal, configuration. The five-year time limit is based on
the rate of deaths so far; even if it never discovers a single 100% deadly
configuration, after that long its experiments will have wiped everyone out.
The plague may have some goal other than killing off all life on Earth as
quickly as possible. Its level of sophistication -- being able to differentiate
between vital and non-vital organs in the human body and navigate the
bloodstream as it sees fit -- suggests that it has already figured out quite a
lot about human biology. Something as simple as introducing large amounts of
chemical waste into its host cells would be sufficient to kill any Earthly
organism.
One possibility is that it's acting as a research mechanism,
designed with the intent of fully exploring the host ecosystem's biology and
reporting its findings back to the Shadows.
If the plague is intelligent,
can it communicate with other lifeforms? If so, it might be possible to convince
it to stop its experiments, eliminating the threat without physically removing
the plague itself.
Continuity glitch: Gideon and Lochley appeared to have no
more than a friendly familiarity with one another in this episode, inconsistent
with their earlier contact in "The Rules of the Game" (which was produced after
this episode but aired earlier
8. PATTERNS OF THE SOUL
A group of
refugees from Earth may be spreading the Drakh plague offworld.
Dureena's
people didn't develop spaceflight on their own; they were taken offworld to act
as workers for another race.
Dureena is not the last of her race alive. A
transport carrying workers for a new colony was attacked by the Shadows, and 100
of the workers managed to escape in lifepods. They formed a small colony on an
otherwise uninhabited world, Theta 9.
Dureena's race is more susceptible to
the plague than humans are; their genetic makeup is apparently closer to the
template the plague uses as a starting point.
Gideon has access to
top-secret materials thanks to a card game he played against a drunk Earth
official some years earlier; the official put up his access codes as collateral
and lost.
Was the cybernetic implant program related to the one involving
Abel Horn ("A Spider in the Web")? The specifics were different, but may have
been part of the same larger operation.
Given the huge risk involved if even
a single person outside the Earth quarantine is infected and able to travel
freely, Gideon has a strong motivation to report this incident to someone, even
at the risk of the General Thompson finding out about it. Will Gideon do so?
Since the plague can easily jump species, he could legitimately take the
approach of reporting it directly to the Interstellar Alliance rather than going
through his normal chain of command.
This episode has the first reference in
the series to the Interstellar Alliance, though an oblique one: General Thompson
claimed that his authority to redirect the Excalibur came directly from
President Sheridan. Which implies that the Excalibur isn't entirely under
Earthforce control; given the Alliance's founding principle of autonomy for
member races, Sheridan presumably doesn't have the power to directly meddle in
Earth's internal military affairs.
Dureena's race hasn't had good luck with
the Shadows and their cohorts; they destroyed the worker transport, then wiped
her planet out. Just a coincidence, or did Dureena's people pose some kind of
threat to the Shadows?
9. THE PATH OF SORROWS
The discovery of a
mysterious alien causes the crew to reflect on significant events in their
lives.
Gideon was an ensign on the Cerberus ten years earlier when it was
attacked by an alien ship, possibly a Shadow vessel. The ship was destroyed
while he was in the middle of a spacewalk to survey some hull damage. Shortly
after the Shadow ship withdrew, the technomage fleet arrived and he was rescued
by Galen. After he returned to Earth, his story was met with skepticism by his
superiors.
At one point, Gideon won a device called an "apocalypse box" in a
poker game. The box's previous owner killed himself immediately after losing it,
though apparently more to escape the box's influence than because he was upset
about losing it.
Galen and Isabelle ("The Well of Forever") were injured and
stranded on a planet after being betrayed by three other technomages. She died
as he comforted her. Thereafter, Galen refused to believe in any kind of higher
purpose or design in the universe, since it would imply that someone decided
that Isabelle deserved to die.
Matheson was working at a secret Psi Corps
base during the Telepath War. He was asked to administer sleeper drugs to a
captured rogue telepath. The rogue convinced him to look at the Corps in a less
forgiving light; he ended up betraying his masters and unwittingly helping the
rogues destroy the Psi Corps base.
Matheson's psi ability is stronger than
P2, though how much higher isn't clear.
Galen's reason for refusing to
believe in a larger design echoes a comment by Marcus. He told Dr. Franklin that
he preferred to think that things didn't happen for a reason, since otherwise it
would mean that people deserved it when bad things happened to them.
10.
RULING FROM THE TOMB
Gideon and Lochley clash on Mars as a group of
religious zealots threatens a conference on the plague.
Since the plague hit
Earth, a number of doomsday cults have appeared on Earth. One of the most
extreme, Sacred Omega, is willing to kill to prevent a cure from being found,
since it believes the plague is God's punishment for mankind's corruption.
Trace Miller ("War Zone") was once studying to be a Foundationist priest. He
witnessed something horrible, which shattered his faith and caused him to drop
out of his training.
Max grew up on Mars. He spent most of his childhood
studying, but occasionally was able to slip away and venture into the seedier
sections of town.
Dureena said she gave a guy a chance once. What were the
circumstances, and what happened?
Franklin is still on Earth, according to
Lochley. Assuming he still holds his post as head of the Earth's xenobiological
research program ("The Ragged Edge") he is presumably playing a key role in
Earth-based research to find a cure.
Max is an expert dancer.
When Trace
is interrogated after being attacked, a sign on the wall can be seen; it reads
"Phobos." That was the name of the bar where Sheridan was captured in "The Face
of the Enemy." On the other hand, it may be a common name for Martian bars,
since Phobos is one of Mars' moons.
The streets mentioned in the episode are
all named after well-known pieces of Mars fiction. Bradbury Street is a
reference to Ray Bradbury, author of "The Martian Chronicles." Burroughs Street
refers to Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote a series of stories about Mars
featuring a character named John Carter, for whom Carter Street is named. This
isn't the first reference to John Carter in the B5 universe; a John Carter is
referred to as one of the first Martian colonists in "A Spider in the Web."
Another Bradbury reference: Max was drinking "dandelion wine" at the bar.
"Dandelion Wine" is the name of a 1957 novel by Bradbury.
Text of the
conference banner:
EARTH ALLIANCE HEALTH ORGANIZATION
Plague
Eradication
Management Strategies
Mars Conference
June 15, 2267
The bomb timer stops on 18. In Hebrew, 18 is spelled out as "chai,"
which means "life."
11. THE RULES OF THE GAME
Gideon attempts to
negotiate for the right to land on an alien planet, but the aliens have other
ideas. Jamie Rose as Cynthia. Tim Choate as Polix.
The original inhabitants
of the planet Lorka 7 were wiped out a long time ago, but the details are
unknown. The new inhabitants, who were led to the planet five hundred years ago
by a being they call "The Most Holy," have agreed to let the Excalibur land and
investigate to see what happened to their predecessors.
Lochley and Gideon
have consummated their budding relationship. Max was a child prodigy, always
getting beaten up in school for being smarter than his peers. He had a lonely
life until he met a woman named Cynthia Allen; the two of them were married for
some time, but she eventually left when it became clear that his devotion was
more to IPX than to her. Her business, trading alien art and antiquities, was
devastated by the quarantine of Earth.
Dr. Chambers was clearly no stranger
to fighting. Was she formally trained? Perhaps she has served in Earthforce; on
the Excalibur it's not entirely clear whether she's a civilian. Five years after
the founding of the Alliance, Babylon 5 is still teeming with activity. Yet a
decade and a half later, at the time of Sheridan's death ("Sleeping in Light")
it's considered useless. What happens in the intervening years to cause people
to stop coming to the station?
Lochley likes to retreat to Downbelow when
the stresses of running the station become too great.
Just after the shower
scene, a ship is shown entering B5's docking bay. This is a tongue-in-cheek
variant on an old cinematic metaphor, more typically rendered as a train going
into a tunnel.
Tim Choate, who plays Polix, was Zathras in the original
series. Dedication:
In Memory of Mister Kitty
198? to May 17, 1999
Now
chasing star-mice
12. WAR ZONE
As Earth reacts to the Drakh plague,
the Excalibur sets out on its mission to find a cure.
Earth has been
quarantined since the Drakh plague was released.
The Excalibur has captured
the first Drakh prisoner of war.
Galen saved Gideon's life nine years ago,
during the technomages' exodus from known space ("The Geometry of Shadows").
How strong a telepath is Matheson? Would he have been of any use in the
interrogation of the Drakh commander? Or is such probing forbidden by the new
rules governing telepaths?
Gideon referred to the Excalibur as the most
advanced warship ever built by humans. Is he aware of the Minbari involvement in
the ship's construction?
The Drakh commander referred to himself as a
councilman. Is there a Drakh government distinct from the military? What is the
relationship between the two apparently different species who make up the Drakh?
Assuming the technomages all departed at once and weren't in transit for a
very long time, this episode takes place in 2268. The technomages departed B5 in
2259 ("The Geometry of Shadows") and Gideon said he'd been rescued nine years
earlier.
Explorer-class ships such as the one commanded by Gideon before he
was assigned to the Excalibur were first introduced in "A Distant Star." Their
missions typically take them far beyond known space for extended periods of
time, mapping out new systems and making contact with alien civilizations.
The question of whether life ever existed on Mars is still unresolved in
2268.
Effects oddity: the fire burning in front of the crashed Drakh ship is
symmetrical.
13. Appearances and Other Deceits
As a group of
propaganda specialists visits the Excalibur to try to improve its image, the
crew comes across a derelict alien ship. John Vickery as Mr. Welles.
Mr.
Welles ("The Fall of Night") is still working as a propagandist for the Earth
government.
Somewhere in the galaxy there exists a race of aliens who are
able to pass their consciousness from one body to another by touch, effectively
possessing the new host. They reproduce by subdividing as they spread, the old
host retaining part of the alien presence and passing it on to the new. Rather
than send their physical bodies out on risky space journeys to colonize other
worlds, they sent out a series of probes, each imbued with a piece of the alien
consciousness. As the probes are discovered, the aliens take over the worlds in
question.
Though it turned out to be correct, Max's line of thought about
the alien writing missed an obvious possibility. He noted that the writing on
the ship and the aliens' spoken language seemed to bear no relation to one
another. The explanation could have been as simple as the ship being
manufactured by one group of aliens and crewed by another; the crew might have
bought or stolen the ship from someone else.
As the alien was being forced
out the airlock, it tried to say to Gideon, "I know what you're looking for. I
know where you can find it!" Was it referring to a cure for the Drakh plague? If
so, did it in fact know of a cure, or was it just trying to tell whatever lie
was necessary to save its life?