Conference hips::babylon5

    The sound was very bad, sometimes I could hardly here what they were
    saying, But......
    
    
    
    Spoiler
    
    
    
    I expected more from Sheridan after the way they went after him last
    week but I guess they were just setting us up again, as next week is a
    re-run they must want us to stew for a while. 
    How did an earthling get to Mimbar (sp) a thousand years ago, this was
    one of the bad spots on the sound track and I could not hear if it was
    really explained or not. I think they came up very quickly with an
    excuse to let her go back to Sheridan and I wonder if she will tell him
    she has some human DNA in her.
    I thought the bit at the end with Marcos and and... (I can't remember 
    his name, must be too early in the morning) was not bad, I know
    Sheridan told them not to be too obvious, but, traveling in the cargo
    space? :-)
    I noticed that Garibaldi did not appear at all, I wonder what is in
    store for him, after last week I expected to see more of him this week,
    at least to see Sheridan confront him about what he said to Fielding.
    
    
    
    
    
    joan

I positively loved the ending credits music on this episode.  A must
listen!

Spoilers ahead:










Contains spoilers for War Without End, Part II, for anyone who hasn't seen
it yet.

How did an earthling get to Minbar 1000 years ago?  Go back and watch War
Without End, Part II.

Nice to see more of the story of the Earth-Minbar war.  Reassuring to see
that Delenn, in true Minbari form, still never tells the entire truth.

    Go Back, I can't we don't have a VCR so I have to rely on my shakey
    memory.
    Did you have the same sound problems as us?
    
    Yes that music at the end was fun.
    
    
    
    joan

Didn't notice any problems with the sound in CT.  I assume the problems
were with your broadcaster.  Then again, I usually have two TVs tuned in to
B-5 when the show's on, just so's I don't miss any nuances.

(Seriously, one of the TVs is actually a computer with TV-in-a-window, and
it's particularly sensitive to sound problems, so if there were any, I
would have noticed.)

    spoiler
    
    
    
    
    I was not in the room when it first started and was very surprised when
    I heard the name Dukat, for a moment I thought I was watching the wrong
    program.
    I thought Delenn's reaction was natural when she said "Show them no
    mercy" after all, they had just killed the one person she really admired. 
    And it was obvious, until the dream sequence, that she had kept it hidden 
    even from herself, that she had made a mistake.
    
    
    
    joan

Not a spoiler

Interestingly, I found a lot more to chew on in this episode than the ones
with all the swell battle scenes, such as Severed Dreams.  Just one more
bit of proof that there's a lot more to war than the shooting.

Spoilers below









batten down the hatches









get the kids off the main deck







an stop spying with that spare eye!!!





As for the human DNA that found it's way to Minbar, to be less 
circuitous than Mr(?) Banks, it came from Valen.  Who if you
recall, was really Sinclair, until he entered his own Chrsyalis
one the way back to the previous shadow war with Babylon 4.

It's interesting that JMS has been questioned previously about whether
Sinclair/Valenn married, had kids etc, and he has always answered
no, Valenn didn't have any kids.  But I guess if one of your plot points
revolves around that fact, and you don't fell like playing your hand
too soon, you're more or less resigned to lying.  

I loved the new prothestic eye for G'Kar.  A soon as Franklin said 
he'd have to turn it off as it would still send signals to the neural 
net in his eye socket, I could see all sorts of uses for that.
Apparently G'Kar did too!  Interesting to see the view out that eye
too, going from the camcorder type image to the richness of the 
view through the film camera.

So Delenn was basically responsible for starting the whole Earth/Minbari
war, eh?  I wasn't really expecting that, hadn't really thought too
much about it, but somehow I wasn't surprised.  It seemed to fit all
too well.  You have to recall though, that she was also the one
responsible for ending it.  No, it hasn't been stated or shown as
such, but I think we have all the pieces for that.  She is the one 
who says, maybe we should interrogate one of them, and then picks
Sinclair's ship at random.  Boy, they must have been pretty 
flabbergasted when the tri-luminary started glowing in proximity to
Sinclair.  Which seems the correct way to review those scenes now.
I had originally interpreted it as using the tri-luminary as a 
means of probing him/viewing his soul or some such.

Good opening teaser with Zack and Lennier.  "Next time, use a larger needle" ;-)

Ah well, now a big break until we find out how Marcus and Franklin
get along on their side trip.  Time to review more episodes.

PeterT 

More speculation behind spoilers...






























>>As for the human DNA that found it's way to Minbar, to be less 
>>circuitous than Mr(?) Banks, it came from Valen.  Who if you
>>recall, was really Sinclair, until he entered his own Chrsyalis
>>one the way back to the previous shadow war with Babylon 4.

>>It's interesting that JMS has been questioned previously about whether
>>Sinclair/Valenn married, had kids etc, and he has always answered
>>no, Valenn didn't have any kids.  But I guess if one of your plot points
>>revolves around that fact, and you don't fell like playing your hand
>>too soon, you're more or less resigned to lying.  

And it seems logical, to close the causality loop, that Valen/Sinclair
wound up helping to at least initiate the work to build the Great Machine
on Epsilon 3, making sure that some of his DNA was around for the makers
of the Triluminaries to work with. It could have been some of his children
as well, but his knowledge would have been critical to making sure that
the temporal disturbance could be created to send him back in time. It's
probably worth wagering a pizza that Valen's remains are right below the
station on the planet...

Chris

    re .1:  Specifically, read 89.8, .22, .24, .46, .56, .58, .63, & .65;
            this should give you a clue as to who Delenn was talking about.
    
    Based on subject matter, it appears JMS is looking for a Season 5 (and
    may already have it as far as I know).

    Spoiler lines:
    



    
    
    
    
    
    
    G'Kar's prosthesis gives a whole new meaning to "Peeping Tom".
    
    Not sure where JMS will go with the Children of Valen thing if this
    episode wasn't a "filler" (it used up one week of the 2-week Doc/Marc 
    Mars Colony Field Trip).  True, it did give us more on Minbar religion
    and the internal strife which could mean disaster for B5 if Minbar
    removes its fleet, but watching Sheridan sleep wasn't exactly what I
    had in mind.
    
    And is Zack ready for command?  I think he protests too much.
    
    And I have to watch it again because I missed why Susan was disheveled
    (in case JMS works *that* into the arc).
    
    							Don
                                                         

    
>    And I have to watch it again because I missed why Susan was disheveled
>    (in case JMS works *that* into the arc).

I'm pretty sure it harkens back to the episode in which she became commander
and had to deal with the 'Green' vs, 'Purple' battles in one of the races
(I can't remember the name right now).  She ended up as purple leader (if
I remember correctly) and took them all down for a dye job (making them
all green).  Maybe she is still leader and as such has some duties -- such
as partying with them :-)  Maybe they party hard!

					Megan

Minor spoilers...



























Yeah, the disheveled stuff goes all the way back to "The Geometry of Shadows".
You have the essentials right, but Ivanova became the green leader, and 
supposedly was going to have all the scarves changed to purple (probably
a much easier dye job than going from purple to green).  Apparently they 
worked something else out, or the dye job faded, as the scarf still looks
somewhat greenish to me.  And I do believe the Drazi know how to party.
JMS has called them a hoot before.  The part that I really appreciated
about that was that Ivanova comes out with the cane that she had been forced
to use during the original dispute, since a Drazi had fallen on her back
then and broke her foot ;-)  Actually, Claudia had really broken her foot
running around her backyard, so they worked it into the story that way.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about why she could wear a green sash without
apparent problem from the possible purple Drazi's, the time period on the conflict
is long since over, as it only ran for a Drazi year.

PeterT

>Oh, and in case you're wondering about why she could wear a green sash without
>apparent problem from the possible purple Drazi's, the time period on the
>conflict is long since over, as it only ran for a Drazi year. 

I had thought that it lasted five cycles.  And Ivanova thought a cycle
was a day, but was told (I thought) that a cycle was a year, hence the
whole thing takes 5 years, of which we must only be in about the second
one!

					Megan

> I had thought that it lasted five cycles.  And Ivanova thought a cycle
> was a day, but was told (I thought) that a cycle was a year, hence the
> whole thing takes 5 years, of which we must only be in about the second
> one!

No, just one cycle.  They figured it was a Drazi week, which wouldn't be 
too long, but the Drazi, chuckling, told them, nope, a Drazi cycle is a 
year, which is 1.2 earth years (I'm going back and checking the episode
synopsis on the Lurker's guide, but I was pretty close in my guesses).
But we would be somewhere in the 2nd year if it was a 5 cycle ordeal.

But that's all moot anyway.  Once the conflict was settled, by domination
of one group by the other, or by sleight of hand, as Ivanova did, sort of,
it was over.

PeterT