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Title: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Released: 1989
Writer(s): William Shatner/Harve Bennett/Dave Loughery
Director: Harve Bennett
Starring: All the usual Star Trek crew plus: Laurence Luckinbill as Sybok, David Warner as Federation Consul
Runtime: 106 minutes
Budget: USD 33 million
Boxoffice: USD 66 million
Critical acclaim: Very low
Fan acclaim: Mixed, but not euphoric
Legacy: First where Shatner directs (and writes). First Trek movie to guest star God, as it were!
Enterprise: NCC-1701A

The first Star Trek movie to follow the three-picture arc begun in The Wrath of Khan and completed in The Voyage Home, this next step in the franchise was basically charting unknown territory, possibly even making a case for using the title of the next movie. But as far as Star Trek goes, The Final Frontier is about as good a title as you can get. But did it live up to its grandiose title?

It could be said, jealous of his co-star, the late Leonard Nimoy's successes in the director's chair for the previous two movies, William Shatner was determined to put his mark on this one, outside of his acting, and not only directed it but also wrote most of the story outline. It would in fact turn out to be the penultimate Star Trek movie with the original cast, as the franchise bowed and made way for the younger guns of the Next Generation series.


So then, the story...

On the planet Nimbus III, deep inside the Neutral Zone and known as “The Planet of Galactic Peace”, (don't know why: it's a godawful dump in the middle of a godawful dump of a desert, of which the planet seems to be principally comprised) a man walks across the desert, meeting others who follow him. He seems to have a power for taking people's pain onto himself and ridding them of their burdens, and in wondering gratitude they join his quest. He reveals himself to be a Vulcan, and says he needs a starship in order to carry out his quest.

Meanwhile, Captain Kirk, Spock and Doctor McCoy are taking some r&r, which for Kirk means climbing rocks in Yosemite National Park, for Spock means watching Kirk climbing rocks in Yosemite National Park and for McCoy means doing his best not to have a heart attack as he grumbles about the irresponsibility of climbing rocks in Yosemite National Park. The mysterious Vulcan proceeds to take hostage three consuls --- Romulan, Klingon and Federation --- who have been sequestered at the ironically-named capital of Paradise City, and the Enterprise is detailed to respond to their emergency call for help. Scotty and Uhura, on board the ship, can't believe it: the Enterprise is in bits, going through a major refit and in no condition to undertake any mission, never mind an emergency one! There's a skeleton crew onboard and its command officers are, as I mentioned, on holiday! Nevertheless, it seems there is no other ship in Starfleet (where the hell do they all get to?) that can respond, and this is an order of the very highest priority. Kirk and co are recalled and the ship limps out into space. A Klingon Bird of Prey is also responding to the distress call, though Captain Klaa, in command, seems more interested in taking on Kirk and bolstering his own reputation than helping the hostages.

When the Kirk and the others view the hostage tape however, it seems that the three consuls are now saying that they voluntarily surrendered themselves to what they call “The Galactic Army of Light”. Of course, Kirk probably reasons this was said under duress, probably at gunpoint, as in most hostage videos. They have requested a starship to negotiate for their release (on the way; you want mayo with that?) but when Spock sees the tape he believes he knows the hostage taker, the man in charge of this “Army of Light”. He remembers a brilliant Vulcan whom he knew in his youth, who rejected logic and embraced emotion, and so was banished from Vulcan. As the Enterprise reaches Nimbus III Spock detects a Klingon Bird of Prey also en route: this would be our friend who was bored shooting the Voyager probe earlier, and he is wired for battle not compromise, although they don't know that. Still, he is a Klingon: what's not to predict about their reaction to their people being taken hostage?

With the transporter still out of commission, it's left to Kirk to effect a rescue “the old-fashioned way”, and so a shuttle stuffed with Starfleet marines heads down to the planet's surface. Now we get the most embarrassing scene in any Star Trek movie, ever, as Uhura plans a little “distraction” to divert the guards. This consists of her dancing lasciviously, silhouetted against the moon, singing a love song. Oh dear God! Who ever thought of that idea? It works though and the assault on Paradise City is short and triumphant... until the “hostages” turn their weapons on Kirk and demand he surrender!

The Vulcan at the centre of the whole operation now arrives, having spent the last while speaking to Chekov, whom he believed was in command of the Enterprise. He introduces himself --- to Spock, mostly --- as Sybok, and does indeed seem to know the other Vulcan. Instead of the perhaps emotional reunion Sybok had expected though, he is greeted with nothing but contempt and shock by the Starfleet officer. Intending to take the Enterprise, Sybok makes hostages of the landing party and accompanies them in the shuttle back up to the ship, but just then the approaching Bird of Prey cloaks, and Chekov, left in temporary command, orders the shields raised. The Galileo cannot dock at the moment. Sybok's plan has hit a bump.

When Klaa hears Kirk's transmission, and knows that he is onboard the shuttlecraft, he orders course altered to intercept the smaller vessel. Kirk decides that he must engage in a risky manoever: foregoing the tractor beam to allow the absolute minimum time the shields must be dropped, he intends Sulu to fly the shuttle in manually. It's less than a graceful landing, but they make it just as the Bird of Prey achieves target, and then the Enterprise warps away before the Klingon has time to retrain his weapons.

Now that they are safely onboard Enterprise, Sybok and his people herd the crew to the bridge, where, under the Vulcan's mind control or persuasion, call it what you will, they all agree to accept him as their new commander and alter course as he directs. Sybok's power appears to be some sort of advanced empathy: he can detect the “hidden pain” in every person and “share it with them”, transferring it to himself (one assumes) and relieving the person of the burden they have carried for years. It may be an old feud, a loss, a chance missed, a lover spurned, a life not led. Whatever it is, Sybok seems able to tune into it, lessen it, remove it. And in gratitude for this “miracle”, the person in question follows him and does as they are bid.

Taken to task by Kirk as to why he did not shoot when he was ordered to, thereby allowing Sybok to gain control of the Enterprise, Spock admits that Sybok is in fact his half-brother; they are both sons of Sarek, though with different mothers. This of course stayed Spock's hand when he could have killed the renegade. Kirk now understands, but he still doesn't have to like it. At the moment though, there's not a whole lot they can do about it, as his ship is under the control of this Vulcan for who knows what purpose and on a heading to who knows where, and they are trapped in the brig, prisoners, betrayed by their own shipmates who seem to have sided with their captor.

Now that they are underway, Sybok reveals the purpose of his quest: he believes he has found the fabled planet of Sha Ka Ree, the planet where all creation is believed to have begun. It lies in the centre of the galaxy, he says, beyond the Great Barrier. Kirk is aghast: no ship has ever traversed the Great Barrier, he says, and none can reach the centre of the galaxy! Spock tells him that the search for Sha Ka Ree was what drew Sybok away from Vulcan (although I thought he said his brother was banished?) and that if he has found it... Kirk worries about Spock's loyalties, now that he knows Sybok is family, but just then Scotty blows a hole in the wall of the brig and they are free, and he has to put such reservations to one side for the moment.

They make it to the emergency communication room and put out a distress call, which is supposedly answered by Starfleet, but has in fact been intercepted by Klaa. Sybok captures them and demonstrates to Kirk how he helps people face their pain, doing this for McCoy and Spock, both of whom are forced to confront painful episodes from their pasts and thereafter fall under his control. Or do they? Spock seems to be able to resist this brain transference thing, and although Sybok has taken his pain, McCoy's connection to his two friends proves stronger than the Vulcan's attempts to sway him, and the three remain together. Sybok now tells them, as the ship approaches the Great Barrier, that he has been given a vision --- by God, no less --- and that the supreme being awaits them on the other side of the Barrier. Now Kirk knows, as he had feared, that Sybok is completely mad. And so much more dangerous.

However, when they do after all make it through the Barrier (with, it has to be said, a depressing lack of trouble or effort, much less than I would have expected) they find that there is in fact a planet there, and Sybok is convinced --- as is about anyone now --- that this is indeed Sha Ka Ree, the fabled cradle of creation. Kirk, given back command of his ship, arranges a landing party, to consist of Spock, himself, McCoy and Sybok, to go down to the planet and check it out. It seems to be a fruitless quest: the planet is desolate, barren, devoid of all life although lifesigns were detected when the ship was in orbit. Suddenly, out of the ground a huge chamber forms, and a blinding white light issues forth. And there, in the centre of that light, rotating like a modern Max Headroom, is a massive bearded face.

The face of God?

It speaks to the four, bidding them welcome and congratulating them on their bravery in making it to the planet. However when it declares its intention to use the Enterprise to travel away from this planet, something does not seem right to Kirk. He questions why God --- if this is God --- would need a starship to get around? Could He not just leave whenever He chose? His questions are met with a brutal barrage of energy from the being's eyes, also directed against Spock when he speaks out, and it becomes clear this is NOT God, but simply a timeless, evil entity who has been imprisoned here for crimes unnameable and that it is using Sybok to effect an escape, masquerading as God and placing the vision of Sha Ka Ree in his mind, using his own thirst for knowledge to ensure that the Vulcan could be manipulated like a pawn.

Having realised his error, Sybok uses his power to confront the alien, telling it to “share its pain” with him, while Kirk orders a torpedo burst upon the creature. This does not of course kill it, but it gives Kirk time to have Spock and McCoy beamed off the planet --- all three cannot go at once as the transporter is only partially functioning. Before Scotty can beam Kirk up though, the alien attacks and to complicate matters, Klaa has reached the Enterprise's co-ordinates, seeing the ship badly damaged and demanding Kirk be handed over. Spock turns to General Korrd, the Klingon Consul who had been "taken hostage" on Nimbus III, for help, and the ex-hostage upbraids his subordinate for an unauthorised attack on the Enterprise. As Kirk faces death at the hands of the alien being, the Klingon Bird of Prey suddenly appears and blasts it to hell. It is soon revealed that General Korrd has taken command, and that in fact Spock is the gunner who despatched the alien. In essence, this means that logic has triumphed over religion, and that Spock has literally killed God!

Receiving an embarrassed, humiliating apology from Klaa, Kirk is returned to the Enterprise and the whole movie comes full circle as it ends with them back on their interrupted holiday in Yosemite, singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.

QUOTES
Kirk: “Even as I fell, I knew I wouldn't die.”
McCoy: “Oh? I thought he (pointing to Spock) was the only immortal one.”
Kirk: “No, I knew I wouldn'd die because you two were here with me. I've always known I'll die alone.”

Kirk: “I haven't sung around a campfire since I was a boy in Iowa! What shall we sing?”
McCoy: “Camptown Races?”
Kirk: “Pack up your troubles!”
Spock: “Are we leaving, Captain?”

Spock (later, after the singsong): “Captain?”
Kirk: “Yes, Spock?”
Spock: “Life is not a dream.”
Kirk: “Goodnight Spock.”

Spock: “I was trying to comprehend the meaning of the lyrics.”
McCoy: “It's a song, you goddamn green-blooded Vulcan! The lyrics aren't important! What's important is that you have a good time singing it!”
Spock: “Oh, I'm sorry, Doctor: were we having a good time?”
McCoy: “God! I liked him better before he died!”

Kirk: “All I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.”
McCoy: “Melville.”
Spock: “John Masefield.”
McCoy: “Are you sure about that?”
Spock: “I am well versed in the classics, Doctor.”
McCoy: “Then how come you didn't know Row, Row, Row Your Boat?”

McCoy (after they pass the Great Barrier and behold Sha Ka Ree): “Are we dreaming?”
Kirk: “If we are, then life is a dream.”

Scotty (looking through the hole he has just blasted in the wall of the brig): “What are ye standin' around for? Do ye no' know a jailbreak when ye see one?”

Kirk (having organsied the landing party for Sha Ka Ree): “Well don't just stand there! God's a busy man!”

Kirk: “Excuse me? What does God need with a starship?”
McCoy: “Jim! What are you doing?”
Kirk: “I'm asking a question.”
God: “Who is this creature?”
Kirk: “Who am I? Don't you know?”
Sybok: “He has doubts...”
God: “You doubt me?”
Kirk: “I seek the truth.”
McCoy: “Jim ! You don't ask the Almighty for his ID!”

Spock: “I was thinking of Sybok. I have lost a brother.”
Kirk: “I lost a brother once. I was lucky to get him back.”

Spock (as Kirk goes to hug him): “Please Captain: not in front of the Klingons!”

Parallels

There are a few small ones: the probe destroyed by Captain Klaa in the Bird of Prey is in fact shown to be our own Voyager, which both harks back to the first movie with V'Ger and shows our own hubris, that we expect alien civiliasations to pick up our probe and listen to what we have to say, rather than just blasting it out of the stars. It's quite a metaphor really, when you look at that one probe carrying the shared knowledge and history of the human race, and the Klingon laughing at it as being just space garbage, and using it for target practice.

The shuttlecraft that brings Kirk, Spock and the other holidaying crew back to the ship is the Galileo, the only one (so far as I can remember) to be named during the original series, when it featured in its own episode, “The Galileo Seven”.

When Scotty is having trouble with the Enterprise's onboard systems, prior to departure, one of the logs he is trying to fix flashes and beeps and says “Good morning Captain”. This is the very phrase, word for word, that greeted Captain Styles when Scotty sabotaged the Excelsior in Star Trek III.

When they approach Nimbus III and a signal is received from Paradise City asking what their intentions are, Kirk responds again almost word for word the same way Khan did when the Enterprise, trying to hail his stolen ship the Reliant, attempted to establish communications in The Wrath of Khan: “Let them eat static!”

The search for the planet Sha Ka Ree mirrors the quest for the mythological planet of Eden in the original series “The way to Eden”.

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Houston, we have a problem!

This guy Klaa is an idiot. To my knowledge, there is no war between the Klingons and the Federation, therefore he has no sound basis on which to attack the Enterprise. Yet he blatantly, and without any orders from Central Command, targets the ship and continues to hunt it. He thinks himself a mighty warrior, but what Klingon would attack a defenceless shuttlecraft, as he had intended to do? How would that play as a “glorious victory” in the songs to be sung of him? Surely he is pissing on everything that the Klingons hold dear, staining his honour and also putting, had he known it, one of his own generals in mortal peril?

When Kirk tussles with Sybok as they exit the shuttlecraft, the rifle is kicked away and Spock picks it up. He points it at Sybok and Kirk screams “Shoot him!” This is not something Captain Kirk would do. Shoot a man (assuming the rifle has no stun setting, or at least is not set on stun), without a trial or a chance to tell his side of the story? Knock him out, certainly. Nerve pinch him maybe (do nerve pinches work on Vulcans?) but shoot him? That's a very uncharacteristic reaction for Kirk I feel. But, why, if he could not shoot him, did Spock not at least incapacitate Sybok? Even if the Vulcan nerve pinch would not work on him, he could have punched him out, hit him over the head with the but of the rifle, slapped restraints on him .. but no. He just back the rifle. Spock, you big pussy! Of course later we learn why he was so reluctant to hurt Sybok, but still, I believe the taunt stands.

In general, I've always had a problem with the idea of Klingons using the cloaking device. I mean, they're supposed to be warriors, unafraid of anything, and with a strong sense of honour that drives them. So how is it honourable to sneak up unseen on your enemy before attacking? Would not proud Klingon warriors prefer to face their foe out in the open, winning a glorious victory through force of arms and strength of numbers, superior strategy, courage and guile, rather than due to some --- let's not forget --- Romulan technology that allows them to hide until the moment of the kill? Certainly, as warriors they would have stalked, in their ancient history, wild beasts and for those purposes stayed to the shadows, waiting for a chance to strike. But these are not animals they hunt. These are men, and men should have a fighting chance.

I just feel the whole idea of the cloaking device goes against everything the Klingon Empire stands for, and I'm surprised they use it. If, for instance, the Federation had the technology and not them, I feel sure that they would be villified in statements like “The humans cannot face us in a fair fight! They must strike under cover of darkness and invisibility, hiding like cowards in the shadows!”

The constant idea of the Enterprise being the only ship that can carry out this mission also annoys me. I know it's integral to the plot, but surely they could have justified it better? A simple "All ships out on manouevres" or "Nobody in range" maybe, but not just the fact that Kirk, and only Kirk, is trusted to negotiate this hostage situation? And considering his ship is basically in a flatpack state at the time, ready to be rebuilt, it makes less sense even than in the first movie, of which we shall endeavour to speak no more. How must the rest of the commanders and captains in Starfleet feel? "Here I am, twenty years in the service with commendations up the wazoo, a powerful starship at my command, ready to go into battle, but no. They send me to the Rigellian Cluster to catalogue nebulae and give the plum job to that Kirk again. What's he got that I ain't got?"

Laughing in the face of death

As Kirk ands McCoy begin the ardorous climb up several levels of the ship, the turbolifts being inaccessible, Spock appears wearing a pair of anti-gravity boots, like the kind he used when, back on Earth in Yosemite, he rescued Kirk when the captain lost his grip and fell down the cliff.

Memorable scenes and effects
The crossing of the Great Barrier is a very effects-laden one, and probably took up a lot of the film's budget, the largest yet for a Star Trek movie up to this point (this movie had more than the budgets of The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock put together). Just a pity it's over so quickly.

There's a very touching scene when Kirk, unable to believe the ship has penetrated the Great Barrier, looks in wonder and his hand slips down the mockup of a ship's wheel whereon is a plaque saying “To boldly go where no man has gone before” as the original Trek fanfare plays. Very well done, guys. Very well done.

The scene right at the end, where Kirk stands alone against the might of this godlike creature (does he not know who he's dealing with, this guy?) on top of a cliff, and then out of nowhere the Bird of Prey rises up behind him like an avenging angel and destroys the alien, is really excellent. I'm not quite sure why, having despatched "God", Spock turns the ship's disruptor towards his captain. Perhaps the Vulcan was having a little joke, no?

Themes and motifs
The most obvious one of course that runs through this is faith. Faith, whether it is real or imagined, manufactured or ingrained in us from a young age, can make us do amazing things, things both wonderful and dreadful. Kirk has faith in his ship, and in his comrades, and this does not prove to be misplaced, although to be fair the rest of his crew fall rather easily to Sybok's blandishments.

The Unknown, always a constant in any science-fiction series, and so much more so in Star Trek (One of Picard's first speeches to Q: “If you'd earned that uniform you're wearing you would know that the Unknown is what brings us out here!”) beckons like a scary and yet enticing hand, and as Sybok says, the Great Barrier at the end of the galaxy is the physical representation of that universal fear. Even Kirk, for a short moment, seems ready to believe that the being they stand before could very well be God. Well, why not? But of course it is not: that would never do, would it? And the creature is revealed to be just an evil alien pretending to be God.

Friendship, as ever, gets our heroes through just about everything and sustains them through the worst times, while pain, another constant theme running through this film, drives us on and often causes us to surmount even the toughest obstacles. Sybok wants to take away everyone's pain --- whether for his own purposes in recruiting them to his cause or as a truly altruistic gesture is never quite established --- but Kirk doggedly holds on to his, reasoning that a man needs his pain. It is this which sustains and pushes him at the worst times, and he believes that without pain a man is probably not really a man at all.

And then there's religion, of course. Sybok is like a prophet, a John the Baptist, crying in the wilderness, looking for his saviour. But unlike the herald of Jesus Christ, the Vulcan is not prepared to sit and wait for God to come to him: he intends to go and seek him out. And in so doing he creates a kind of a religion of his own, a cult of personality based around himself in which anyone will do anything he asks. He takes away pain and asks those whose pain he removes to follow him. Is he, in this regard, any different from Jesus curing the lepers? But he does have, at least all of the time we see him, an ulterior motive, so his curing of people, as it were, cannot be seen as a purely selfless action, with nothing expected in return. He does expect something: loyalty and obedience, and he gets it.

But is there a deeper message here? Are we being warned that God can wear many faces, and some of them are not so glorious to look upon? And that we should not perhaps so blithely accept that any being who seems godlike is in fact God, or a god? Everyone, even the pragmatic McCoy, seemed to believe that the alien was God; it was only Kirk's reasonable quesiton that set doubts in anyone's mind, doubts which grew and then coalesced as the being began punishing Kirk, and then Spock.

But religion has caused people to do some of the most heinous things, and wars of bloody carnage have been fought over whose god is the real one, so it's clear religion has a power all of its own, and that people's beliefs can be used, manipulated, shaped to the ends of whomever has the strength of will to control and bend them to his own will.

Does this movie deserve its reputation?

Often cited as one of the worst Trek movies (though I personally doubt anything can, or ever will, trump the first one) this has also been said to have been the movie that almost killed the franchise. It's not hard to see why. Part action-movie --- the first hour or so concerns the taking of the hostages on Paradise City and Starfleet's attempts to rescue them, Die Hard style --- and part existential theological discussion, it's almost the film that can manage to offend everyone. Again, like some of the other movies, there is virtually no space battle at all. The ony shot we see fired in anger misses the Enterprise, and then there's Spock's shot that destroys the alien on Sha Ka Ree (or whatever the planet is) but that's not in space so doesn't count.

There's again a little too much humour and virtually no drama. Nobody dies. Nobody. Not even one of the ambassadors, who surely would have been expendable --- although I guess they had to retain Korrd for the rather silly resolution of the poorly planned Klingon part of the plot, such as it is --- and so far as I can see, not even one crewman gets injured. At least in Star Trek IV Chekov fell and was close to death. There's just no real tension in the movie and as I already said, the crossing of the Great Barrier is done almost in a single bound. Bo-ring. The effect is good, but only that. Even “God” is something of a letdown, dissolving into basic energy after the photon torpedo hits.

There's little personal conflict. If Spock had gone over to Sybok's side, then there would have been a dilemma for Kirk. But no: he stays loyal, and though he loses his brother it somehow doesn't have the impact we expected it would, and Sybok's sacrifice at the end is very much telegraphed from an early point. Scotty has most of the best lines, but even at that they're poor, and Uhura is reduced to alternating between dancing sexily in the moonlight (Lord preserve us!) and trying to come on to Scotty, embarrassing for both of them. Also stupid, as there was never seen to be any sort of attraction or sexual tension between these two, neither in the series nor in any of the preceding movies.

So what are we left with? Something of a shell really. A rather aimless plot that, rather like Sybok himself, wanders all over the place looking for something to do before finally finding God and blowing him up. Yeah. Says it all really.

Overall, I think the movie does deserve its very poor rep; it's a weak start for Shatner as a writer, not the best as a director either, and it's really hard to find, even among the main cast, any performance that really stands out. In the end, Sybok, rather like Khan, steals the show. Not that there's too much to steal.

All I can manage in this case then is a poor

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Trollheart

2.3 “Spiders”

Someone has managed to hack into MI5’s mainframe and has in the process cut off two agents who were in the field and in need of help. Suspicion falls on one Gordon Blaney, a school teacher and member of a socialist group, SFM (Socialist Freedom Movement), known to be well funded and to engage in cyberterrorism. The SFM use a socialist paper, “Red Cry” to contact each other and get messages through. Danny is trying to infiltrate it by getting in touch with the editor, James Crowe, himself a violent anarchist suspected of other crimes. Zoe is sent in undercover as a teacher to the school to try to pump Blaney for information, a situation she is not happy about.

When it becomes clear that Blaney is using the school’s computers to held Crowe infiltrate MI5, Zoe, having become better acquainted with the teacher, thinks something does not add up. He’s not the type, she says, to make his bed with anarchists. The more she sees about how important the kids he teaches are to him, the less she can believe he is in league with the “Red Cry” editor. Danny’s cover is blown when one of Crowe’s associates gets suspicious, and about to lose their target MI5 have to step in, arresting them both. Zoe arrests Blaney at the scene. However he does seem to be what he says, and not involved with Crowe, though he shares some of his views. He says all he was doing in the IT room was installing modems for the pupils to use.

As it turns out, he’s telling the truth. The hacker is a young kid, a pupil whom Zoe, in her persona as Jane Graham, escorts home when he’s being bullied by other kids. Peter is being coached by his father and is trying to break into the MI5 mainframe from his home. A message is sent once he hacks into the mainframe to advise cryptically that a nuclear device or some sort of radioactive material is at the school, and it is evacuated, but it turns out to be a decoy, a chance to allow Peter to get into the MI5 hide and thereby gain access, via the computer systems that have been left there, to the full computer mainframe. As the device he used to trick MI5 that there was radioactive material at the school was found in the shed in which Blaney and Zoe had tried to comfort the kid after he had been apparently bullied --- obviously a ruse as can now be seen --- it has to be either Blaney or Peter, and when Zoe is confident Blaney is innocent she races to Peter’s home.

In fact, he turns out not to be called Peter at all, but Noah: Noah Gleason, the son of Victor Gleason, MI5’s man in Greece, who double-crossed them and was working with Albanian terrorists, who kidnapped him and the boy and killed the father. Noah’s psychosis is so strong that he believes his father is still alive, and here with him, urging him on to revenge. After Zoe has explained to him what he’s doing, what could happen if he goes ahead and uploads the files on the personal details of the agents in the field that he’s downloading, um, Tom comes in and hits escape and stops the program? See “Hard to believe?” for more.

So Noah was setting everyone up, from Crowe to Blaney, photoshopping images and diverting intelligence, laying a false trail which MI5 followed while he took the opportunity ot get into their system and try to destroy them from within.

QUOTES
Zoe: “One of these days I’m going to get a bump on the head and all these people I’m supposed to be are going to fuse together in my psyche and I’m going to be one hell of a schizophrenic!”

Zoe: “I’ll do my job but I’m not just going to forget those kids!”
Tom: “Look, if SFM succeed in destroying our national network we’ll be useless to this country as we were to Anthony and Cleopatra, and that means those kids’ lives will be in danger. That means everyone will be in danger. So .. wear a tight sweater tomorrow.”
Zoe: “What?”
Tom: “I’ve been watching him all day. He obviously fancies you, so you need to build on that connection.”
Zoe: “A-any particular sweater in mind?”
Tom and Danny: “The blue one.”

Blaney: “I think whoever’s playin’ you is playin’ you good, cos you’re not only barkin’ up the wrong tree, you’re in the wrong flamin’ forest!”

Harry: “The Angel of Death is over us.”

Zoe: “What about Blaney?”
Tom: “He’s being relocated, with our apologies. He gets book tokens, I think.”

Ghost of Victor Gleason: “Just remember the spider my boy. When her web is destroyed, what does she do? She builds another one, even more beautiful and complex, and she catches many flies.”

Harry’s world

“Quite beguiling, isn’t it?” he says to Zoe, as she voices her doubts about Blaney’s intentions. “The simplicity of the outside world: dinner bells, detention, names on chipped coffee mugs. You enjoy being part of something ordinary.."

When Zoe expresses doubt that Blaney may be a terrorist, that he seems to be genuine, Harry doesn’t want to know; his world does not have time for emotional considerations; he can’t be second-guessing himself and he certainly can’t, and wouldn’t, let the fact that a suspect “seems a nice sort” weigh on his opinion of him professionally. Harry deals with facts, not feelings, numbers not hunches and his world is ruled by empirical data, like a scientist. He can’t afford doubt, because it can lead to decisions which can have horrendous, even fatal consequences.

On the incarceration of Noah in a “safe place”
“See, you always knew where you were with a public school traitor. Just look for the bearded pipe-smoking sodomite with a copy of E.M. Forster under his arm.”

Laughing in the face of death

In a high-risk job like being an MI5 agent you have to take your comic relief and humour where you can. As they bug the school where Blaney works, Danny snaps good-naturedly at one of the techs: “No running in the corridors!”

As Tom and Malcolm watch Zoe’s performance as a teacher in the classroom, Tom breathes “Give me an Afghan drugs deal any day!”

With unbelievable irony, the only room they can’t bug is the IT room, as it’s being refurbished and they’re afraid the decorators might find the device.

Big Brother is watching!

The hide, or monitoring station for MI5 outside the school turns out to be a workmen’s hut, inside which all the listening equipment is set up. Nothing less likely to draw attention than one of those ubiquitous huts we see every day when there are road works to be done, gas mains to be laid or whatever.

Other lives
I’m going to start chronicling and detailing the various identities Spooks have to assume in the course of their work, and how if at all they differ from their own personality.

Zoe is given a false identity as Jane Graham, a young English teacher who had a canoeing accident in France. She’s also holding down the persona of Emma, a legal secretary, which is how one of her friends ---- none of whom, of course, are aware of her real identity or her true occupation --- knows her. It’s quite a balancing act.

Danny is Ray, a freelance journalist who professes left-wing socialist sympathies in order to get close to Crowe at “Red Cry”.

Hard to believe?
After all the tension, the warnings from Noah not to touch his computer as it downloads the sensitive data from the MI5 mainframe because “you never know what might happen”, Tom just walks in, hits escape and aborts the download. Just like that. What if it had some failsafe in it that would automatically complete the download and then email the files to a pre-arranged address? He took a hell of a chance and, on the face of it, was very irresponsible. I thought at least he was going to pretend to be Noah’s father, try to convince him to shut off the program, but no: he just does it himself?

Worst ending since season one’s “Traitor’s Gate”.

Collateral damage
A label that could certainly be said to apply to Gordon Blaney, used by Noah Gleason as a pawn in his game, totally blameless and yet he loses his job and his standing, and must now be another of those forever bound by their signing of the Official Secrets Act. Just another leaf blown in the storm MI5 kick up when they put an operation into place, and which they seldom if ever clear up behind them.

The Shock Factor
I guess it’s twofold really. First, there’s the red herring of Blaney being the terrorist when it turns out to be the kid after all, and then when we see his father talking to him, urging him on, to find out that he is in fact dead and only living in Noah’s mind is something of a startler certainly.

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2.3 “The Wapping conspiracy”

New character!
Jeff Dicquead, played by Berwick Kaler, intrepid reporter whose career exactly mirrors Alan's, in reverse. As B'Stard rises through the echelons of power, Jeff falls further down the chain, this reflected in the newspapers and rags he ends up working for. He doesn't figure prominently in the series, but it is amusing to see how Alan treats him, and how far he falls. Here he is reasonably gainfully employed, announcing himself as working for The Star, one of Britain's top tabloids.

Having been made the Parliamentary Secretary for the newly-formed Young Ladies' Recreational Society (like putting a fox in charge of a henhouse!) Alan is hosting a reception at his home when damning accusations of sexual impropriety air on the television. Shocked, his guest all leave and Alan, after a searing row with Sarah in which they each accuse one another of the grossest marital infidelities, (all probably true) determines to take the newspaper making the allegations to court. After Piers, as his defence counsel, makes as expected a mess of things, Alan decides to defend himself, and makes mincemeat of the defendant. The journalist, Arthur Cox, crumbles and admits he made the whole thing up and faked the pictures, and Alan has won the case.

But of course it's never that simple. It turns out that the whole thing was concocted between B'Stard and the journalist, in order to split the damages from the case. When the “disgraced” reporter calls around to celebrate and collect his cheque however, Alan double-crosses him, recording the conversation on a pocket tape recorder, which now gives him the opportunity to take another, proper case against him, this time for accusing a Member of Parliament of attempting to pervert the course of justice! Well, if you will make a deal with the devil...

QUOTES
Schoolgirl (looking at a statue of a politician): “Excuse me, Sir, who is this?”
Alan: “Search me! Some obscure, forgotten politician? Roy Hattersley?”
Other Schoolgirl: “He can't be that obscure if he's got a bust.”
Alan: “Well, you've got a bust and nobody gives a toss who you are!”

Alan: “I have had just about enough of you! There's always one: ugly, fat, acne-ridden swot, with glasses and overactive subaceous glands who has to show off to make up for his or her --- and in your case, I'm deliberately hedging my bets! --- physical repugnance! What's your name?”
Schoolgirl: “Agnes Tebbitt!”
Alan: “Oh. Er, any ... any relation?”
Agnes: “Niece! Favourite niece!”
(Norman, now Lord Tebbitt was a high-ranking politician in Thatcher's government, and very much one of B'Stard's superiors. For our American friends, she might as well have said her name was Agnes Bush!)

Alan: “Mister Speaker: isn't it odd that it's always fat ladies with mustaches who call me a sexist pig, whereas attractive, leggy one with long golden hair tend to shout “More, Alan, more!””

Alan: “Pardon my wife, Dame Cecily: she's blind in one eye,” (when out of earshot) “or she will be, in about ten seconds flat! Sarah! What the hell has gotten into you?”
Sarah: “If it's any of your business, darling, a rather butch usher from the public gallery!”

Alan: “Sarah, why are you deliberately trying to sabotage my career?”
Sarah: “Well why shouldn't I? You sabotaged my career.”
Alan: “What career?”
Sarah: “Shopping. If you want a loyal, devoted Tory wife by your side pay off my credit card bill.”
Alan: “Well I would, but it's a choice between paying your dress bill and personally financing Britain's independent nuclear deterrent!”

Sarah: “Shall I tell him about the old English sheepdog, and why we had to have all his fur cut off?”
Alan: “Well at least Bonzo was a mammal! Let's talk reptiles! Let's talk about Brian, the obliging iguana!”
Sarah: “At least Brian was grateful, and it lasted more than thirty seconds.”

Jeff Dicquead: “Alan! Alan! Jeff Dicquead, The Star. Are you confident of winning this case?”
Alan: “No, I'm expecting to lose, but I want to waste the judge's time, incur crippling legal expenses and render myself persona non grata in every home in Britain.”
Dicquead: “Can I quote you on that?”
Alan: “I doubt it: I used some rather large words.”

Prosecutor: “So what would you say, Mrs B'Stard, if I were to tell you that I can produce a witness --- a young court usher --- who will testify that you performed an obscene act on him using a Jerusalem artichoke, a pair of jump leads and, not to put too fine a point on it, a pencil sharpener?”

Proscutor (after the judge and the girls have sang “Ging gang gooly”): “Thank you My Lord: the court is alive to the sound of music. But to return to the more sombre melodies we must sing down here, and particularly to Tracy Hopkin, aged 15, Pamela Green, aged 15 and a half, and Ralph, a crossbreed collie, age unknown.”

B'Stard's closing (and opening) speech: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Look at this pathetic, evil, subhuman man. Can you be surprised that he hates me? I'm witty, I'm infinitely better looking, I drive around in a Bentley and I have a beautiful wife. Whereas you (turning to the defendant) are a malformed, scropulous, clapped-out old alcoholic who's only got a job because all the quality journalists resigned when your newspaper moved to Wapping.”

Machinations
Even for a B'Stard scheme this one is up there. Alan gets together with a journalist from one of the tabloids to concoct a libel case. He, shocked at such allegations, will take the paper to court, at the appropriate dramatic moment the journalist will fold, agreeing he set everything up, and the paper will pay half a million in damages to B'Stard, who will split it with his partner. But a quarter of a million is of course not enough for the greedy Tory, and he stabs the journalist in the back, claiming to be outraged by the suggestion that it was all a setup, in the process not only pocketing the half mil but surely earning more in damages from his erstwhile partner personally!

The User and the Used
And of course, in the same way, Arthur Cox is used by B'Stard. He uses him when it is expedient; pretending to promise to honour the agreement he makes with him but then using him as a patsy when he realises he can. Whether this was in his plan all along or he simply decided in the flush of victory that he wanted to keep all the money (and preserve and indeed enhance his reputation) is unclear, yet in a way he's playing a dangerous game here. As it is, the case has gone his way and nobody suspects anything, but when the second court case comes up (if it does and Cox doesn't settle out of court to avoid a possible prison sentence) and the seed of doubt is sown, perhaps some people may begin to think that you know, yeah, it was all a little convenient the way Cox just broke down so easily and with so little prompting. Maybe there is something in his accusation after all...

What is love?
Although they manifestly hate and loathe each other, B'Stard realises the importance of presenting a united front for the cameras and asks Sarah to support him. He realises that if there were to be any hint of acrimony or disharmony (it can be assumed that Sarah's extramarital dalliances, to say nothing of his own, are kept strictly private and everyone thinks they have a good marriage) might serve to damage the case. But Sarah hates him and wants to see him fail. So how to convince her? As ever, diamonds are a girl's best friend, and Sarah demands a share of the damages in return for playing her part. Ah, young love!

PCRs
B'Stard exhorts a party guest to have more sherry, enthusing that it is South African. This is in a time when the evils of Apartheid were still in force in South Africa, and it was considered bad taste to buy or use anything from that country. This just serves to show what a right wing Tory bastard the MP is.

The B'Stard bodycount

Non-Lethal: Arthur Cox: Although not killed, the journalist's career certainly is. He probably handed in, or intended to hand in his notice before or after the case, and now that he has been implicated in another scandal he has no chance at all of ever getting a job with any newspaper. His dreams of retiring on the proceeds of his shared scam with B'Stard have been shattered by the Tory's betrayal of him, and he has nothing left to live for. We don't find out what happens to him, but I'll bet he becomes a hopeless raging alcoholic living under a bridge somewhere, assuming he doesn't top himself.

Non-lethal Bodcount: 6
Lethal Bodycount: 4
Total Bodycount: 10

And isn't that...?
Peter Moran is played by Andy Serkis, best known for portraying Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie series.
Peter Woods and Richard Whitmore, both television newsreaders, appear as themselves in the fictionalised broadcasts of B'Stard's supposed indiscretions.

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Season One, Episode Three

Called to the scene of a stabbing, Sam is amazed to find that the factory that stands where he is now will one day be the flat he lives in. Or lived in. Or will live in. In fact, the victim is sprawled, he can see with certainty, under his very own kitchen table. The victim, one Jimmy Saunders, has been marked for something like this, as he has been defying the factory's union, which wants to slow the process of replacing men with machines as new looms are brought online. Hunt believes his maxim that “whoever speaks first, did it” will serve him, as it has in so many other enquiries, but Sam not surprisingly wants to take a more considered, forensic approach. A bet is made. Hunt hates “Commies”, which is how he sees these union workers, so is naturally biased, whereas Sam is of course more open-minded.

While Hunt is engaged in busting open lockers at the factory in search of the murder weapon, believed to be a long-bladed knife, Tyler finds a footprint near one of the machines and they take an impression, sending it back to the station to confirm the size. Sam is however disappointed to find that a witness identified a man seen leaving the factory around the time of the murder, and the police sketch conforms almost exactly to that of Hunt's suspect, Ted Bannister. Evidence is mounting up against him, and then he breaks and confesses. But Tyler is not convinced. Ted says he threw away the knife he used to kill Saunders, but neglected to dump the bloodied shirt he wore, which has been recovered by CID. In that situation, what would you make sure you got rid of? The knife, which could be anyone's and without DNA testing here in the seventies impossible to prove was the weapon, or the shirt with the victim's blood on it?

Hunt of course is happy: he has his man, the mill can open again and more importantly, he has won his bet and shown Tyler once again that he is the guvnor. Tyler has a chance to bolster his reputation though when he stops rival DCI Litton from the RCS (Regional Crime Squad) making off with Dodds, the fence they arrested, by telling him the guns they found on him are in fact fake, made of wood. He points out, in a speech shown below in the “Quotes” section, how embarrassing it will be for RCS if they arrest the fence on this flimsy, and incorrect, premise. Litton has no choice but to hand Dodds back over to Hunt's people. Score one for them! He is of course lying about the guns. They're real enough. So real that Tyler gets Dodds to make the drop, as the CID swoop and find that ... the buyers have scarpered out a broken back window! Hunt is not happy!

Meanwhile, that's one problem but there's a greater one Tyler has to solve, and a man's freedom hangs on it. He knows Ted Bannister is not guilty, but if he isn't then why did he confess to the murder? Surely to protect someone? He decides to bring in Ted's son Derek, and his fiancee, who is pregnant with his child. The father and son talk to each other but Ted maintains his guilt, while Derek seems to want advice --- “Tell me what to do!” he cries. Just then forensics come back and confirm Sam's worst fears: that the blood on Tim Bannister's shirt is that of Saunders. It looks as if they do, after all, have their man.

That night, a troubled Sam has another dream wherein he sees the girl from the BBC TV testcard, and she advises him to give up, lie down and sleep, forever. As she says this, we can hear the sound of a heart monitor slowing, slowing, going towards flatline. Suddenly though he wakes up shouting “NO!” At the station the next morning, the time-of-death report on Saunders confirms that Bannister could not have killed him: both he and his son were in the pub at the moment the crime was committed, and were seen by witnesses. So we're back to square one. But if Bannister is not protecting his son, who is he protecting? Why did he confess?

Back at the factory, Sam notices that the belts on Saunders' machine have been replaced: they are brand new. He suddenly forms a theory. Saunders was not murdered at all. He was the victim of a terrible accident when the well-worn belts of the loom he was working on gave up the ghost, snapped and flew back at him like a whip, killing him instantly. Under pressure of this new information, Ted Bannister admits that he had gone to the factory to see Saunders and have it out with him, but that by the time he got there the loom had done its deadly work and the man was already dead. Panicking, lest the accident be the cause of the mill closing down and losing all their jobs, he changed the belt and cleaned up as best he could but took so long that he ended up being caught in the frame for the supposed murder. He is of course now let go. But there's a twist.

As Tyler disconsolately runs through the interview with Tina, Derek's fiancee, he hears her talk about picking up a bag, and realises to his horror that she was involved in the heist of the guns Dodds was fencing. They realise Derek and some of the other factory workers plan a wages hit, to take place at the factory tonight, and they tool up and head over there. They manage to stop it, but not before Derek has Hunt and Tyler at his mercy, at the end of a shotgun. Fired up, he refuses to put down his weapon and is shot by Hunt while Sam tries to reason with him.

QUOTES
Tyler: “Chris, I want you to record the shape of this blood.”
Chris: “Wot?”
Tyler: “Blood spatter analysis, by D.H. Crombie?”
Hunt: “I'll wait for the film, thanks.”
Tyler: “Oh, you'd like the book: it has pictures!”

Tyler: “I agree that departmental protocol suggests we hand the case over to RCS, inasmuch as the evidence thus far obtained, however diluted from its original perceived significance would indeed benefit from investment by a police body more experienced and equipped to process it through to court.”

Hunt: “Is my name Coco?”
Tyler: “What?”
Hunt: “Why are you trying to make me look like a clown?”
(Is this a very, very clever pointer to the followup series “Ashes to ashes”, which featured a clown as its central character? Or indeed, the BBC girl with the clown that Sam keeps seeing in his dreams?)

Hunt (as Tyler practice aims his revolver): “Yeah, but can you hit anything or not?”
Tyler: “You should see my Playstation scores!”

Hunt: “Drop your weapons! You are surrounded by armed bastards!”

MUSIC
“Ballroom blitz” (The Sweet)

Opening music, kind of sets the tone for the episode. It really comes into its own when Hunt reverses the Granada at speed down the road (it being a one-way street) with a burger crammed into his mouth, and just for good measure, hits a pile of boxes (why are there always piles of boxes?) and sends them flying, totally seventies cop-show style!

“Wishing well” (Free)
Plays out of the tape recorder Tyler has been using to interview Bannister, as Ray remarks how useful these things are.


“Gypsy” (Uriah Heep)

Plays during the stakeout as the guns are paid for and Dodds returns with the money

PCRs
Jeering Tyler's blood spatter pattern picture, Ray sneers “Oh that's nice! You should send that to the gallery at Vision on!”
(Vision On was a kid's programme, run by Tony Hart, where children would send in their artwork and if it were deemed good enough it could be kept in the gallery and shown on TV during that segment of the show)

Learning from the master
As he walks along the road and a kid on a bike nearly bumps into him, Tyler yells “Oi! Keep it on the road or I'll come round to your house and smash up all your toys!”
This he of course heard Hunt say in the first episode, and despite his initial dislike of the man and his methods, it seems Sam is realising that some of those ideas do work. In fairness, the “kid” is about fourteen or more, and doesn't look like the type to play with toys, but I guess that could be said to refer to anything he uses for entertainment, like his record player, TV set or even his bike.

Tinfoil hat time?
As Sam returns to the squad car, his radio crackles with a message: but not a message from the station. This is like an instruction from somewhere else; a medical sort of voice, a nurse perhaps, who advises “We know you're in there but your levels of response have decreased. Don't give up!”

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2.3 “The witch of Elsdon”

Having seen something in a dream, Robin leads his men towards the village of Rufford, where they come across what seems at first to be an honest carter, transporting grain. But Robin has the inside track, and demonstrates that there is in fact money --- lots of it --- in the sacks of grain, and that the man who gives his name originally as James is none other than the Sheriffs's tax collector, Gregory of Bedford. Making short work of his escort --- who suddenly appear when it is clear the ruse has not worked --- the outlaws take their spoils back to their lair. Meanwhile, in the nearby village of Elsdon, a woman is being tried as a witch. Gisburn accuses her of holding the villagers under her spell, though she claims he is only trumping up these charges as she refused his sexual advances. Abbot Hugo, brother of the Sheriff, is presiding and in no mood to listen to the woman's pleas of innocence. As in almost every witch trial, she is found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, along with her husband, who also stands accused. It's clear Gisburn has cowed the villagers into signing false confessions, but what chance has an ordinary, harmless woman and her husband got against the power of the Church? They are both to be taken to Nottingham for the execution, to take place in four days.

In good spirits after the trial, the Sheriff's mood soon sours when he gets back to the castle and hears that he has been robbed! He blames Gregory, says he sold him out, and nothing the tax collector can say will save him from the rack. Now, suddenly, Robin and his men are a problem. When they were, as the Sheriff sees it, carousing in Sherwood Forest, they weren't his concern. But now, they're taking food out of his mouth, money out of his coffers, and he is not going to stand for it! He concocts a plan to use the condemned woman, Jannet, the accused witch, as a way of dealing with the outlaws. Knowing of her skill with plants, he offers her and her husband freedom if she will go into the forest, befriend Robin and his men and drug them, leaving them helpless and at the mercy of his men. With no other option, and the promise of a far more painful and lingering death than just hanging if she refuses, Jannet agrees.

Having “escaped” into Sherwood and come under the protection of Robin and his men, (especially Will Scarlet, who falls for her) she tells them that the Bishop of Leicester is due to pass through there in a few days. Initially worried that the rich cleric will be too well guarded, Robin eventually gives in to greed and necessity --- and probably does not want to seem timid in front of his men --- and they agree to waylay the fat prize, at Darkmere. But as they make their plans they are suddenly struck down over dinner by Jannet's deadly potion, and fall into a swoon. All but Marian who, having quarrelled with Robin over not being seen as one of the team and being left behind all the time (bloody women!) is sitting at the shore of the lake when Herne appears to her, to warn her of the danger. When Jannet returns to Nottingham to advise the Sheriff she has done as bid, he orders Gisburn to head into the forest and take care of Robin and his men. He has, of course, no intention of keeping his promise to her, but he needs her to lead his men to where the outlaws lie helpless.

Luckily however (though not for Gisburn!) Marian has been able to revive them and they are all fully capable of taking on the Sheriff's men (though they feign unconsciousness, to gain the upper hand). Gisburn is captured, as is Jannet, and Marian has sympathy with her predicament and the terrible choice she had to make. So does Robin, though Will is less pleased when he learns she has a husband! Robin hatches a plan to free Thomas, her husband, and returns to Nottingham, dressed as Gisburn, to force the Sheriff to hand him over. Hostage for hostage, Gisburn for Thomas, but there's a problem: the Sheriff hates Gisburn and would be happy to see him dead. So Robin has to “convince” him that he really does want his knight back, at the point of a sword. When faced with death at the hands of the outlaw, the Sheriff suddenly realises that Gisburn is, after all, indispensable, and the exchange is made.

Quotes
Abbot Hugo: “Thous shalt not suffer a witch to live: Exodus. Neither shall you use enchantments. Leviticus? Leviticus.”

The Sheriff: “What a paragon of virtue you are, Gisburn! I'm really most impressed. If she'd tried to bewitch me, I'd be inclined to let her!”

The Sheriff: “I shall have to be very careful in the future, Gisburn.”
Gisburn: “My Lord?”
Sheriff: “Of you, Gisburn. Especially when you don't get what you want.”
Gisburn: “I don't understand, My Lord...”
Sheriff: “Don't you?”
Gisburn: “The woman was a witch, My Lord!”
Sheriff: “Of course she was. And a very pretty one!”
(The Sheriff is letting Gisburn know, in no uncertain terms, that he does not for a moment believe his story of the woman being a witch, and knows that Gisburn is ony taking revenge on her for not succumbing to his advances. The Sheriff will, however, completely fail to bring this important fact to the knowledge of his brother, and will allow Jannet to die, condemned for something she did not do. He really does not care either way, but he's warning Gisburn he had better not try that shit on him!)

Sheriff: “If Robin Hood want to prance around Sherwood worshipping Herne the Hunter, or any other bogeyman, why not let him? He can paint himself bright blue for all I care! There's a price on his head, and sooner or later someone is going to earn it. One of his merry men, I shouldn't wonder.”
Gisburn: “And the Lady Marian?”
Sheriff: “What about her? Poor girl's gone native! He'll tire of her. It's only a matter of time. One woman and half a dozen men: it's a perfect recipe for disaster!”
(Here the Sheriff is giving us an unusual point of view. Robin Hood is an outlaw, sought by the Crown and openly defying the authority of both the King and the Sheriff, yet the Sheriff seems content to let him be. He seems unaware of, or uncaring of the following the wolfshead is massing behind him, or maybe he just can't countenance that these English peasants could in any way threaten his rule here. This thinking will of course change, as he realises just how dangerous Robin is, not only as a man and as an outlaw, but as an ideal. He will later say “You can't kill an idea, Gisburn”. And he will be right. But at the moment, he is utterly blase about the whole prospect. Like Gisburn's spat with Jannet, he simply could not be bothered.)

The Sheriff: “I will not have Jews in Nottingham! Whip them to the gates!”
(Hitler would be proud!)

Hugo: “Why don't you have their heads mounted over the gate? That's what I'd do: as a permanent reminder to the other rabble!”
Sheriff: “I'm not a gamekeeper, Hugo. And what about the stench? Are you forgetting that the prevailing wind blows from that direction? I want them forgotten as quickly as possible.”
(Of course he does. A dead martyr is the last thing the Sheriff wants, a permanent reminder that you can stand up to the King. Or him. For a while at least.)

Sheriff: “Well? Where's the villain's head?”
Robin: “On the villain's shoulders!”

Robin: “You can kill a man with that feather, or you can save his life.”
(The pen is, truly, mightier than the sword. Or in this case, the quill.)

Robin: “It wasn't Gisburn's life I bargained with, it was the Sheriff's. And now he'll hunt me till one of us is dead.”
(And so it begins).

Parallels
Interesting that once they've disarmed Gisburn, the outlaws put him on a ducking stool and dip him in the river, an ancient torture used to determine if someone was a witch or not. Given that the episode focuses on a so-called witch, can that be coincidence, or poetic justice?


Questions?
When asked how he knew about Gregory’s grain containing the sheriff’s silver, Robin says “A little bird told me”. Which little bird? Is he speaking of his dream? But in that dream, he had no idea what he was looking for, as he told his men “We’ll know when we find it”.

What was the deal with the Bishop of Leicester? Was he on the way? Or was it just a ruse, and if the latter, why? It’s not like Jannet led them into a trap or anything, so why mention it at all?

How did Marian save the band? We saw her being told by Herne cryptically to go back, but when the Sheriff’s men arrive in the forest Robin and his crew are all recovered. What did she do to arrange this, and how did she know how to counteract the herb, if indeed she did? Just rushing back to the glade was not enough to save them. We’re not told what she actually did, if indeed she did anything.

Nothing’s forgotten
No indeed. The Sheriff will not forget that he was made a fool of by Robin Hood. Outfought by the outlaw and at swordpoint forced to agree to his bargain, humiliated in front of his brother the abbot, he will now hunt Robin with a vehemence and dedication the exact opposite to the lackadaiscal approach he showed in his speech at the beginning of the episode. Now, it’s personal. Not only that, he has seen too how much of a figurehead and a rallying point Robin and his men can be, and how that can threaten his authority. Robin Hood is a real threat now, not just an annoyance as he originally believed, and that threat must be dealt with.

Gisburn, too, will not forget. He has been taken prisoner by Robin’s men, stripped and humiliated and finally sent back like a ransom to his master, in disgrace and no doubt with many laughing behind his back, though of course not to his face. A knight, Guy of Gisburn will see this as an intolerable blemish on his honour, and will wish to avenge himeslf on the Wolfshead.

Nor, finally, will the people, the poor villagers, forget how Robin helped them and shared out the grain from the Sheriff’s stock. They were willing to bow to his tyranny before, giving up Jannet and Thomas, even though they knew they were innocent, but the Sheriff will have a harder time grinding them down now. The people have a new hero, and they will be willing to hide him, stand by him, perhaps even die for him if necessary. Robin of Loxley is the embodiment of all the hatred, fear, anger and resentment simmering in England at the rule of the Normans, and his will be the avenging hand that will strike for the common man.

Houston, we have a problem!
Yes, yes, it’s only episode three (technically two, as the first one was a two-parter) but even so, this is pretty weak. I mean, the two storylines don’t hang together at all. There’s no real link between the “witch” and the tax collector, Robin’s stealing the money and grain doesn’t impact on the plot, other than to begin to cement his relationship with the villagers and to wake the Sheriff up to the threat he poses, the Marian-wants-to-be-one-of-the-boys idea is boring, even if she is the one who (somehow) ends up saving them all. But the real problem I have is with Robin’s plan to save Thomas.

Does he really think that the Sheriff cares about Gisburn and will ransom him? He would be happy enough to hear that Robin had cut the man’s throat! He barely tolerates him, certainly does not like or value him, and berates him every chance he gets. He thinks he’s useless, not a thinker, too rigid in his approach and hardly ever smiles. Perhaps the outlaw is unaware of the tetchy relationship the two share. Perhaps. So Robin has to change his tack, and go for the Sheriff himself. It seems like an obvious ploy --- your life for his --- but couldn’t he have come up with something better? It really does look like a plan half-cobbled together at the last minute, and doesn’t do the series --- or Robin himself --- justice. Plus he goes there alone, but just happens to catch the Sheriff and Abbot Hugo without their guards? Thankfully the series picks up with much better writing soon, but this is on the whole just pretty painful.

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Season One, Episode Ten
“ A very important passenger”

Callon is approached by a mysterious stranger who asks him to take an important passenger on board one of his ships which is heading towards Italy, however the stranger will not reveal the name of the person. He is offering to pay handsomely, but the secrecy of the endeavour and the implicit danger makes Callon shy from the offer. He does though volunteer James Onedin, making a very good case for the unlikelihood of anyone suspecting this “important passenger” to be travelling on such a small ship. He also points out that the Onedins are in need of cash, and will jump at a third of what Callon is being offered by this mysterious gentleman. Thinking about it, the stranger decides that maybe it is not too bad an idea and does indeed approach James, but contrary to what Callon told him, Onedin does not jump at a hundred pounds, but is very suspicious as to why Callon --- whom, he is told, recommended his services to the gentleman who wishes to remain anonymous --- turned down the commission.

In the end, James is able to extract four hundred pounds from the man, more than Callon was to have been paid, and is sworn to secrecy. Robert, though somewhat in awe of his brother's bargaining powers, is delighted to see that they now have enough to buy his shop: once James returns with the passenger safely delivered, as this is a half-now-half-later deal. Still, it's more money than they've seen in a long time. Bad news follows good though, as he is told by Anne that Mister Baines will not be sailing with them, having been taken ill at a hostel. Luckily for him, there just happens to be a replacement looking for a berth, and he signs the man on as mate. He in turn picks the crew, and thankfully James is able to leave on time, the passenger turning up at the very last moment and jumping on board even as the ship slips its moorings. There's trouble brewing of course though: the new mate, Medcalfe, seems to know who their passenger is, even if the captain does not, and the helmsman, Santos, grins that it will be an honour to kill him.

We do find out that the mysterious man who offered the money, and shepherds the stranger on board, goes by the name of Sir George. Not that you couldn't tell from his speech, manner, bearing and dress that he is a man of social standing, but it's interesting to have it confirmed. The passenger also mentions that he will someday repay the Prime Minister's kindness, so we know he has moved in the very highest echelons of British society and government. An important passenger, indeed!

When James discovers that the passenger has a pistol in his possession, he takes it from him, advising him that as captain the rules are his to enforce, and he does not allow firearms on board. He is, however, intrigued by the design of the pistol; a new one, in which the chamber revolves, allowing for more than one shot before it must be reloaded, unlike most other pistols of the time. Despite his contention that it is for self-defence only, the passenger cannot prevent Onedin from taking it from him. In the fo'csle, the two assassins discuss how best to murder the man James Onedin has just deprived of his only means of protection, but the mate says they must wait till they are out further to sea; it must look like an accident, he tells his crony.

James, on receiving sealed orders from his passenger (“It is best you do not know who they came from”) is annoyed to find that he is being told to divert to Sardinia, and certainly irked by the fact that this man seems to have taken over his ship. He again tries to discern the identity of his passenger but is rebuffed, told that such information may endanger his life. Back in Liverpool, Robert is approached by Callon, who lets him know that, although he had to knock down the elder Onedin's shop to make way for his new dock, he has another for sale. On board the Charlotte Rhodes, the assassins make their move, tired of waiting for a fair wind and running out of patience, and time. Their efforts are thwarted by James, however, who pushes the assassin's target out of the way as a freshly-cut rigging rope allows the sail to drop on him. Furious, James tells the mate to bring the seaman to him.

However the passenger tells him that he has a suspicion this was more than just an accident, and when he hears that not only has the man in the rigging not sailed with Onedin before, but that none of the crew have, his eyes harden with a steely realisation. When Anne relates the tale of Baines's mysteriously taking ill, only hours before the ship sailed, he postulates that the regular mate of the Charlotte Rhodes may have been poisoned, and in exchange for the return of his pistol, he reveals to James and Anne his identity.

He is Giuseppe Garibaldi, known to history as the man who united Italy's warring principalities into one strong country, and there are of course vested interests desperate to ensure he never returns home to carry out his campaign. His assassination would cause political unrest back home, so he theorises that an accident has been arranged to make certain he never again sets foot on his home soil. The incident with the sail, he tells Onedin, was just the first such; there will be others.

Robert, seeking advice, goes to see Albert Frazer, who counsels him not to buy the shop Callon is offering. Why, he asks, did Callon not put the shop up for auction, and force the highest price for it? Why is he being so accommodating to a man whose entire family he professes to hate? And more to the point, should Robert sign anything and James not carry out his commission, thereby forfeiting the other half of the fee, Robert would be indebted to Callon, an agreement sealed, and the magnate would not be long about seizing Onedin Line assets if Robert could not meet his commitments. No, don't touch it, says Albert. There's something very wrong with this deal. He tells Robert to prevaricate; he will find him a better property.

The assassins have decided to take Garibaldi out when they land at Gibraltar, but given that he has no cargo for there James has decided not to bother and is continuing on. This puts a crimp in the plans of the men, and Garibaldi wonders why James does not take the opportunity to change his entire crew here? James however is loath to pay them all off, as he must do if they are to suspect nothing, and will take his chances. Garibaldi is doubtful, but he must commend the man's bravery, if not his fiscal prudence. Robert has a visit from Albert and Elizabeth, who tell them they have heard of a chandler hard by who is soon to sell up, and that Robert should move fast. When he hears the price though, Robert laments that he has not enough to cover the sale, and Albert “generously” offers to buy his Onedin Line shares. Tempted (the idea of gonig back to being a simple shopkeeper without having to run all his decisions by his brother is indeed diverting), Robert declines the offer, probably knowing that James would hit the roof were he to allow Frazer to gain an interest in his business.

The crew plan a mutiny, and put it into effect just as Garibaldi pleads for Onedin to change his plans and land him at Sardinia first, whereas James wants to meet a bonus deadline by unloading his cargo first . Taking Onedin hostage they bring him out on deck and confront Garibaldi. Medcalfe tells the general that if he gives himself up Onedin and his wife will not be harmed, and Garibaldi begins to walk towards him. Before he gets in range of the assassin's flintlock pistol though, Santos declares “He is for the knife!” and advances towards his target. Garibaldi draws his pistol and requests permission to fire it into the air, as a last gesture and proof that he died like a soldier. Seeing no harm in this, Medcalfe allows it. He is of course unaware of the new pistol, and thinks Garibaldi has used his only shot. He discovers his error a moment later, when the general levels the (to the assassin's mind, empty) pistol at Santo and fires, and the knifeman goes down. Taken by surprise, Medcalfe allows Onedin to get the jump on him, but quickly recovers. Garibaldi, pointing the pistol at him, tells him to let the captain go, but Medcalfe believes that the most that the general's gun could contain is two cartridges. This time, his error proves fatal.

As they head towards Sardinia, they are overtaken by a Navy frigate, which, the captain (an admiral, no less!) tells them has been waiting for their arrival. It will escort them to port and the Navy will supply men to replace the dead crewmen, though this will of course all be kept secret. Garibaldi leaves the Charlotte Rhodes to begin his mission, full of gratitude for and somewhat in awe of Captain Onedin's courage, taken with Anne's beauty and grace and with, according to Robert when they return to Liverpool, a very good chance of succeeding in uniting his country.

Robert is less happy when, on advising his brother that he has bought the chandler's shop that Albert suggested to him, he is told that it will be run not by him, but by the Company. Well, it was the money for the voyage that bought the shop, and as James archly points out, it was he who ensured Garibaldi's safe passage back to Italy, and did he but know it, helped both make history and birth a nation in the process.

Quotes
Anne: “You don't really mean royalty, do you?”
James: “For that kind of money, he can be the Devil incarnate!”
(And you feel that, were he to need passage and offer that sort of cash, James would have no problem shipping the Prince of Darkness wherever he needed to go!)

James: “Ask too many questions and you'll never be rich!”

Anne: “Oh! I thought it was my husband, Sir.”
Garibaldi: “It is my misfortune, ma'am, that I am not.”

James: “You find it necessary to carry a weapon?”
Garibaldi: “Ah, that depends on which country I am in, Sir.”

Garibaldi: “I do not enjoy good health in my limbs. I hope my country will use me before I break up!”
(Very appropriate, as at the time of this episode Italy was a fragmented country, as he goes on to explain to Anne, and he is to be the one to reunite it into one whole)

James: “Does he think he's chartered the ship?”
Anne: “I think he does. James, he's used to having orders obeyed.”
James: “Has he told you who he is?”
Anne: “No, but clearly he's no ordinary passenger.”
James: “Aboard my ship he is.”

James: “My passenger's name, please, for the ship's log?”
Garibaldi: “Am I a passenger? Not freight: very high value freight, for four hundred pounds?”
James: “How do I know that it's not in my interests to know your name?”
Garibaldi: “I have powerful enemies set against me, Sir, who would prevent this voyage if they could. If you transport me wittingly you may set them against you too!”
James: “I'm not concerned with your state among men.”
Garibaldi: “Not men, Sir. Nations!”

Anne: “James, this is more important than any bonus!”
James: “Aye, it would be. If I was convinced”
Garibaldi: “You doubt my word?”
James: “You plan to overthrow the armies of both France and Austria: you think I'm going to gamble my bonus day on that?”
Garibaldi: “Your own Minister Gladstone gambled his entire career because he spoke out about men he saw rotting in Neapolitan jails!”
James: “You think if I land you first it'll help to free one of them?”
Garibaldi: “I do! And when we have freed all our people you will never lack for trade in Italian ports.”
James: “But if you fail, General, I'll be banned from every port in Europe controlled by your enemies!”
(A sticky problem indeed: who to bet your money on? The already established powers, though they be poised to go to war and destablise the entire region, or this seeming dreamer who intends to take them all on and win? Whichever way he lays down his coin will determine the future of any business Onedin intends to carry out in the Mediterranean.)

Garibaldi: “Are you on their side, Jackie?”
Jackie: “Oh I'm on the side that wins, Sir. Have to be.”

Tightfist
Even though, as Robert points out to him, the chandler's shop was sold to Callon out of necessity born from James's absence, the younger Onedin brother does not see it that way. Robert wants James to use the profits from their voyages to enable him to buy back the shop, but James has other plans. Even though he is directly responsible for the loss of Robert's livelihood, he is not willing to help him out. When he (theoretically really, and just to make a point) asks Robert how much he would need to buy a new shop --- or his own back --- he then has to remind his brother that there is also the cost of outgoings, stock... by the time they're through, he has almost doubled the amount Robert said he would need.

When Robert accuses him of being able to find the money quick enough if it were a new ship they were discussing, James angrily reminds him that they are in the shipping business. To which Robert, equally angrily --- and, it must be said, rationally and validly --- replies that chandlering is shipping business. When Robert pushes the issue though, James pulls rank on him, telling him that his eighty-five percent shareholding makes him the decision maker, and he has decided that The Onedin Line cannot afford to buy a new chandler shop. End of meeting, end of subject.

James is quite aware that a man who will offer one hundred pounds for a passenger's berth and then quickly ups the offer to two hundred can be convinced to go to three hundred, and when he hears that it was Callon who recommended him, he knows something is afoot. Why didn't his rival accept the fee? What is there about this passenger --- for whose passage this man who will not give his name is prepared to pay far more than the standard fare for a passenger ship to a man whose livelihood is in cargo --- that Callon did not like the sound of it? And how can he use that to his advantage in this negotiation? Answer: he beats the man up to four hundred, a one hundred percent increase on what Callon would have been paid. He knows there is risk, and he expects to be paid accordingly.

Manners and mores
It's typical of Victorian society that even the small gesture of kissing the hand of a lady he does not know earns Garibaldi a stern, even shocked look from Anne. It's the tiniest of breaches of social etiquette, but she frowns at him as if he had made an improper suggestion. But of course he is Italian, and they do things differently over there, even then. Of course, it may be more than that: Garibaldi is a powerful man with a magnetic, almost irresistible charm and personality, and Anne may, despite herself and her loyalty to her husband, be experiencing the very slightest beginnings of attraction to him, and wish to distance herself from that.

She is also scandalised to hear that Garibaldi has been married more than once, although he contends this is only “in my heart”. She cannot reconcile the debonair, graceful and charming man before her with the faithless rogue and womaniser he tells her freely that he is. In Victorian society, of course, marriage was for life and to be divorced was almost unheard of. As we have seen previously with Elizabeth, for a woman to leave her husband is sheer folly and looked upon with the utmost repugnance; an act of irreconcilable shame. For a man to do so is perhaps just as bad, but a man will always get the benefit of the doubt, here in the nineteenth century. However, Victorian men hold their honour and their values in great esteem, so even if they do cheat they will hotly deny such accusations, perhaps even fight duels over them. It is not quite so much the fact that Garibaldi cheats that is abhorrent to Anne Onedin, more the blase indifference, almost pride with which he confesses it to her.

The Industrial Revolution
The nineteenth century in England was of course a time when some wonderful inventions came to light, from the steam engine to the cotton mill, and here I'll be looking at when these inventions are introduced as part of the storyline, and if, at all, they contribute to it.

Garibaldi shows Onedin a new type of pistol. Unlike the ones popular at the time, which fired a single shot and had to be reloaded (basically a portable version of the musket) this one has a revolving chamber. This means, of course, that it can fire several shots without needing to be reloaded. Its ingenuity, even its existence passes most people of this time by, so that James is interested in it, but more to the point, it actually saves Garibaldi's life, when the would-be assassin thinks he has discharged one shot and there is no further danger from the gun.

History lessons
Garibaldi explains to Anne how volatile the situation in Italy is at that moment. Both France and Austria lay claim to parts of the country, different kingdoms, and he fears they may both go to war over them. If so, the war will of course spill out into the rest of Europe. The only real way to prevent this is to make sure that both powers are driven out of Italy, which he intends to do. Should England, which is neutral in the conflict, be seen to be openly supporting Garibaldi, it will make enemies for her of both France and Austria, who may indeed decide to war against her, or at best will be poorly disposed towards her in the future. So Lord Palmerston, the British Prime Minister of the time, is giving his aid in secret, in the hope of both preventing war in Europe and uniting Italy, thus stabilising the whole area without having been seen to have been involved.

It's hard to think of Italy as other than the single country we now see on maps, yet we should recall, if we're old enough, the reverse plight of Yugoslavia, which, after many years of wars, broke up into separate countries, the countries we know today, like Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Croatia. Indeed, to a degree, the breakup of the old Soviet Union can also be a case in point. I'm not quite sure though where we can find a similar example of a country which was split into separate kingdoms coming together under one flag.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Trollheart

Season Two: "The coming of Shadows"
2.17 “Knives”


I suppose it's just being American, but so many drama shows have to shoehorn in their homage to sports and it just annoys me, particularly when it's pretty much nothing to do with the episode. Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was a culprit, even using baseball as a way for Sisko to try to explain the linear nature of human existence in its very first episode, and don't even get me started on “Take me out to the holosuite”! Shows from Criminal Minds to Grimm and Homeland to Medium take any opportunity to force these little sporting cameos upon us, and as a non-American it annoys the hell out of me. Even JMS can't resist bowing to his favourite sport as we open on John Sheridan taking batting practice, of all things, as a way to release the pent-up aggression and frustration he's feeling from, as he tells Garibaldi, “an eight hour session with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds”. The security chief tells him that he's lucky: Garibaldi would trade banging diplomatic heads together for having to spend time in the “B5 Triangle”, an area in Grey Sector in which odd things have been happening, and which has acquired a reputation for being haunted. Interested in such things from an early age, Sheridan decides to check it out. Meanwhile, Londo is attacked from behind by a figure who holds a knife to his throat, but when he is then told “You are doomed, Paso Leati!” the Centauri ambassador turns, to hear the deep, rich voice and see the smiling face of his old friend Urza Jaddo, who has come to see him on a matter of great urgency.

Sherdan descends into the bowels of the feared and mysterious B5 Triangle, where he finds a wounded Markab, but when he tries to help the alien it leaps towards him, touching him and pressing its hand to his face. Overcome by shock and horror, Sheridan jumps back and the alien slumps against the bulkhead, dead. Soon after he returns though he starts feeling odd: seeing strange visions, sights he does not recognise, a planet he has never seen. Sights he does recognise, too, such as a winged alien called a grylor which once stalked him on Janos VII: it appears in his quarters and attacks him, but when he shoots at it it suddenly is not there anymore. Garibaldi, drawn to his quarters by the gunfire, but on the way there anyway with the forensic report on the Markab, tells him that the doctor concludes that the alien bashed his own head against the pipe: it was suicide, but they can't work out why.

Jaddo drinks long into the night with Londo, but when the conversation turns to talk of war, and the rise again of the Centauri Empire, it's clear that Scoutura does not share Londo's passion for the “old days”. He tells Mollari that a faction within their own government was responsible for orchestrating the reignition of the war with the Narns (whom he appears to sympathise with, a very rare trait indeed in a Centauri, other than Vir), and that further, this same faction was also instrumental in removing the old prime minister and setting up Cartagia as their puppet on the throne. Londo seems shocked (though surely he's not that naive?) but not as shocked when he is told by his friend that he and his House are to be declared traitors to the Republic. Londo of course agrees to stand with him; his star is on the rise and his word carries much weight at court, so he is a powerful ally.

When he realises that what he sees next, the ship his wife died on, explode in front of Babylon 5 when it was known it crashed over Zha'dum, Sheridan knows something is going on and he gets himself checked out by Franklin. The doctor, however, can't find anything medically wrong with him. He attributes these visions to possible stress, but Sheridan is not so sure the solution is that simple. Franklin puts him on administrative leave, starting now. Londo contacts Refa, confident he can shut down the resolution to have his friend declared a traitor, but Refa tells him it is already done, and that if he stands with Jaddo, he may end up being taken down along with him. Furious, Londo reminds Refa how he got to be in the position he is in, but Refa will not relent. The resolution will be passed, must be passed.

Garibaldi advises Sheridan that they have found out one thing about the dead Markab: that he passed through Sector 14, the same point in space where Babylon 4 briefly re-emerged from its time loop in season one's “Babylon squared”. Sheridan is amazed: he was totally ignorant of this occurrence, but it's not surprising, Garibaldi tells him, as Earth Force sealed all records and classified the incident under the highest secrecy level. Luckily, not only was he there personally but he managed to make a copy of the events, which he hid away and which now he passes on to his captain. Londo meets Urza and tells him that he is safe; Refa will look after everything, but Jaddo spits the name, telling his friend that it was Refa who brought the resolution before the Centaurum, and who will no doubt make sure it passes. He is dismayed that Londo would ally himself with such a man, and the long friendship is strained as Londo leaves the party uncomfortably.

Before he can though, Scoutura has a shock for him. A blade, a kutare, which was supposed to have been a gift, a symbol of their alliance against Refa, now becomes a challenge: a duel to the death, which Londo reluctantly accepts, stung by Jaddo's inference that he is “as cowardly as your friends”, men who strike in the shadows and through agents, who are seldom seen but whose hand is detectable in every dark deed woven in recent times in the Empire. Vir shakes his head helplessly at the stupidity and futility of it all, but there is no going back. The duel will take place in two hours. “Make your peace with the gods”, Jaddo advises him. Sheridan meanwhile sees a vision of his parents, and knows what he must do. He takes a Starfury and launches, without telling anyone where he is going. Ivanova sends Garibaldi after him, and he tells him he is heading for Sector 14. Once there, a sort of jump point opens and something expels from his body, flowing into the wormhole before it closes. Sheridan collapses, and Garibaldi shepherds his Starfury back to the station.

The duel does not go well for Londo. He is outmatched, and he knows it. Jaddo was ever the better fighter, and as his friend scores hit after hit, with Londo unable to make a mark on his opponent, Vir fears for his master's life. Indeed, step by step, Londo is pushed back until finally he is knocked to the floor, but as Jaddo raises his sword for the killing stroke, Mollari strikes upwards and kills his old friend. As he dies in his arms, Jaddo tells Londo that he wanted to die with honour, so that the stain of disgrace which will be passed upon him by Refa's resolution will not adhere to his family. Under the rules of Centauri society, Jaddo's family becomes spoils of war, the property of the victor and therefore part of Londo's House, and so they will come under his protection. This was his plan all along --- at least, once he realised that Londo was allied with Refa and his hope for a pact with his old friend was in tatters.

Sheridan tells the staff that he realised he had somehow taken onboard some alien intelligence: it had been “in” the dead Markab who, unable to make sense of the images it was being sent, went mad and killed itself, whereas Sheridan figured out the sequence and its meaning. The grylor (fear), then the Icarus exploding (loss) and the parents (home), all leading to the inescapable conclusion that the alien inside him was trying to get home. He reasons it lived in the strange anomaly that resides in Sector 14, and to there he returned it, happy to not only be free of it but also to have managed to help it get back home.

QUOTES

Sheridan: “When I was a kid I used to love to wander through all those creepy places. Haunted houses, forbidden paths, Indian burial grounds: it was like candy to me. Couldn't get enough of it.”
Garibaldi: “Just don't go in there alone, ok?”
Sheridan: “Aw, that's half the fun!”

Vir: “Every generation of Centauri mourns for the great days when their power was like unto the gods. It's counterproductive. Why make history if you fail to learn by it?”
(In this one sentence, Vir in his innocent yet wise way has summed up the entire Centauri way of thinking, and their problem. Yes, they are a race who long for the old days, but as we will see later, and as we are somewhat seeing with Londo, if that power is handed back to them they would and will make the same mistakes their ancestors did. It is, in fact, an unbreakable cycle of tradition and violence.)

Garibaldi: “Maybe next time you'll listen when I tell you not to do something.” (Pause at a hard look from Sheridan) “Sir”.

Garibaldi: “Hey, it happens. I once saw a whole chorus line of purple wombats doing showtunes in my bath tub. Course, I was pretty drunk at the time!”

Jaddo: “ A resolution is about to be brought before the Centaurum, declaring me and my House as traitors to the Republic.”
Londo: “You're joking! They could never prove such a thing!”
Jaddo: “These days, the mere accusation is enough.”
(So it was in Nazi Germany: just accuse your neighbour of being a jew or a sympathiser, or say they spoke out against Hitler, or any other little excuse that the Gestapo needed to take them away, and there was no proof required, and no defence possible).

Franklin: “Seven months ago you were commanding a starship on on The Rim. Suddenly you're put in charge of a small city in space, just as a major war breaks out. Your diet changes, your sleep is constantly interrupted, you face a major crisis every other day. On top of that, you're not sure if you can trust the people who put you here in the first place. That's a lot of stress!”
(And you think there's pressure in your job?)

Londo: “Urza is a friend, and more, a duelling comrade. My House and his have been allied since the earliest days of the Republic! I will stand up for him.”
Refa: “This is unfortunate. The political reprecussions will be very grave. House Jaddo is crumbling, and anyone who stands with it will crumble as well. We will try to protect you, of course, but if your link with this man gets out, you may no longer fit in with our plans.”
Londo: “I fit in with your plans? Perhaps you are forgetting who made your plans a reality, and how it was done?”
(This surely must be the first inkling Londo gets that a) perhaps he aligned himself with the wrong faction --- something he is already beginning to regret and rethink, and b) that Refa is already growing so overconfident that he may soon believe he can do without Mollari. It may be time to start thinking about moving some pieces on the chessboard!)

Londo: “Nothing can stop this. A new day is coming for our people, a great day. And I can help you be a part of it.”
Jaddo: “You cannot build an empire based on slaughter and deceit!”
(Funny, that's what just about every empire has been built on. What does JMS think happened? The Ottomans, the Romans, the Nazis, the Carthaginians, all said “Sorry, would you mind awfully if we annexed your country, enslaved your people and plundered your resources? Thanks a bunch, very kind.”??? Slaughter, betrayal, rape, conquest, imprisonment and greed: these are the basic building blocks of any empire!)

Vir: “Disgrace is preferable over death!”
Londo: “There was a time when I would agree with you, Vir, but not now.”
Vir: “This is insanity!”
Londo: “Insanity is part of the times, Vir!”
(Indeed...)

Londo: “The blood is already on my hands. Right or wrong, I must follow the path to its end.”

IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS

This episode is not central to the overall plot, though it's not quite self-contained either, as it certainly begins to map out a pathway for Londo which will take him to a very dark place indeed, and in his own heart, I think he has realised this. He also surely realises that it is far too late to change his mind now, despite Vir's urging at the end of the episode. The die is cast, he has made his choice, and he must live or die by it. Or, to be more accurate, millions across the galaxy will die because of what he has done. There are a few other almost semi-strands of the plot just kind of encroaching on this story, almost like wisps of fabric from an unseen tapestry blowing intermittently through a half-open window, tantalising us with possibilities, ideas, clues, none of which can really mean very much or be deciphered at this early stage, but which soon, very soon, will show us the whole dread picture, or most of it anyway.

Sector 14
Arc Level: Orange
As already shown in season one, this is an area of space that is highly unstable thanks to what appears to be some sort of fluctuating tachyon field surrounding it. We've seen how Babylon 5 used the field to arrest its journey backwards through time, and now it seems there are creatures living there. What other surprises has this sector of space, classified by Earth Force, for us in the future?

The Centauri Court
Arc Level: Red
As no doubt even those of you who have been paying only the most fleeting attention to my writeups can tell at this point, one of the main powerbases for the coming war is on Centauri Prime, where the new emperor, the unhinged nephew of the late Turhan, Cartagia, plays at being ruler and does not realise he is being controlled by factions within his own government. We see here that Refa is in a position of power himself, and quite willing to dispense with Londo should he have to. But is this just a bluff? After all, Mollari remains the only link to Morden and the Shadows: Refa does not yet know how he pulls off these daring raids, what his source of intelligence, to say nothing of his own powerbase is, so were he to sever ties with Londo he might find himself cut off from this mysterious power.

On the other hand, he may reason that Morden (though of course he is unaware even of the man's name, to say nothing of his existence or his position in the power structure) once he realises Mollari is out of favour, and therefore no longer any use to him, may seek a new contact, and Refa would of course ensure that he would fill the ambassador's shoes. One thing is clear: he wishes to take out Jaddo and he will not be gainsaid, even by the man whom he once counted as his biggest and most powerful supporter. This attitude must also show Londo that he has created a monster, one which may need to be put down before it turns on him.

At any rate, much of what happens throughout the galaxy from a point very soon on will revolve around the Centauri court, and as Londo has dreamed all these years, his beloved empire will soon once again have its hands on the levers of power. What it does with them is completely another matter.

The Icarus
Arc Level: Red
Not so much the ship itself, which Sheridan only sees in a brief hallucination as the alien tries to communicate with him, but what it represents, as already laid out partially in “In the shadow of Zha'dum”. There is much to be discovered about the fate of Morden, who was of course a passenger on that ship, and that of Sheridan's late wife, as well as a shocking revelation which will lead to .... but that would be telling, wouldn't it?

One Good Centauri

I really have to feel for Vir in this episode. He's such a peripheral figure. It's like when two old friends meet and there's a third in the company who is not in the circle; they feel left out, and are usually made to feel that way. While in the opening scenes of the episode Londo and Vir are reminiscing about Centauri opera, and even end up singing a duet, once Urza Jaddo arrives Vir is pushed to the sidelines. Jaddo hardly acknowledges him (as a supposedly royal Centauri I suppose he looks on Vir more as a servant, and someone not worthy of his notice) and there's a touching scene where Jaddo and Londo raise a toast, and Vir tries to join in but is unable to clink glasses with them, completely ignored. I'm reminded of Homer Simpson, trying to fit in when he went to try to get the job at the nuclear power plant and found himself the outsider among college buddies who had gone to school with Smithers, or Meg in Family Guy, who seems in one scene to be enjoying herself with a bunch of friends, only for us to realise as they move on and she stays in the cafe that she was just sitting with them, not part of their group.

Even when Vir commends Londo for sticking up for Jaddo and trying to defeat the resolution, Mollari ignores his praise and just orders him to start contacting his people. Later, as the two agree to the duel, Vir can be seen in the background shaking his head and rolling his eyes, and when he tries to comfort Londo later, on the death of Scoutura, Londo is inconsolable and will not listen to Vir's advice to use the tragedy to realise that he is on the wrong path and do something to change it, instead fatalistically declaring that there is no turning back now.

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Questions?

What exact threat did Jaddo pose to Refa and his accomplices? He seemed to have powerful friends, and was vehemently opposed to the new emperor and the manner in which he attained the throne, but was it just this that sealed his fate? He tells Londo that he knows of the conspiracy to murder the prime minister and place Cartagia on the throne. Did he have proof? Is it this that makes him a target? He also seems, oddly for a Centauri, to have sympathy for, even empathy with the Narns. Is it this that Refa and his colleagues are afraid of, that if Jaddo were to gain enough popular support he could challenge the war against their age-old enemy and perhaps turn the tide of opinion against the emperor? Or do they even fear that he may make a play for the throne himself, organising a coup? With Londo's help, that might succeed, which could be why, though he disguises it with a thin veneer of contempt and regret, Refa fears the union of these two old friends, and must remove Jaddo by any means possible?

I'm sorry to say that I believe none of these questions are ever answered, and with the death of Urza Jaddo we are simply left to theorise that the old Centauri got in Refa's way, and nobody does that for very long.

Why were all files on Babylon 4 sealed and confiscated by Earth Force? Why should the present hierarchy care if there was some phantom sighting of an earlier station, an unexplainable (at this point) event? Has Clarke something to hide about the predecessor to Babylon 5? Did his people sabotage it, somehow sending it back in time for some reason? Could they? Are Psi Corps involved? Or is it the Minbari, who have great influence over the purse strings of the present station, who have demanded, or requested, total secrecy on the matter? And if so, how can they be sure that those who were there will not blab? Sinclair has been reassigned, so we know he is very much where the Minbari can keep an eye on him, but Garibaldi is not exactly known for being tight-lipped, and now we see that he passes on the information he has to his new commander. Why didn't Earth Force have him reassigned too, away from B5 and its new captain?

Absent friends

Significantly, neither of the main alien ambassadors, G'Kar or Delenn, are in this episode even for a moment. As I think I said before (been so long since I wrote one of these) G'Kar can probably be assumed to be back on his homeworld, helping in its defence or trying to get people to safety. But Delenn, considering Sector 14 was mentioned: you would have thought she would have been involved, especially if, as theorised above, her people have a special reason for wanting that sector of space to remain off-limits. Of course, without Delenn there is no Lennier, though that's not always the case. However, there is no sign of her attache this episode.

Sketches
Londo Mollari

We get more of the youth of the Centauri ambassador filled in for us in this episode. We learn that he was part of a duelling society, and had the name Paso Leati while his friend Urza Jaddo, his House linked to Mollari's from “the earliest days of the Republic” (you wonder how the Centauri measure time: is everything “from the earliest days of the Republic” and then after that? ) was called Scoutura, this meaning “the silent beast”, while Londo's referred to his being as crazed as the animal called the leati, which I think we can assume is some sort of lion or big cat. It's intimated quite strongly that the two men both loved the same woman, whom Jaddo ended up marrying, and it is perhaps ironic that in the end, Londo gets what he wanted all those years ago: Jaddo's wife will, on his death, become part of Londo's family, and she will be under his protection. However, we already know Londo has, or had, three wives, two of which the emperor, before his untimely death, allowed him to divorce in season one's “Soul mates”, so even with only one left he's hardly likely to want a second! Not to mention that he killed her husband!

We get too a sense of the darkness crushing in around Mollari, as he begins to realise what he has done, what he will yet do, and how it will affect just about everything in the galaxy. He is either too proud though, too stubborn or even too pragmatic (or, one might postulate with no real degree of irony, afraid) to try to retrace his steps now. He could go to Sheridan, tell him what he knows, and unaware that the captain already knows about the Shadows but knowing he has met Morden, whom he ordered released as “a guest of the Centauri Republic and under their diplomatic immunity” in the previous episode, perhaps act as an inside man for Sheridan and his allies. But he does not think about this: he is a lost soul, and truth to tell, he is enjoying the sudden power and recognition that has come his way. He is, to put it in the parlance of the forties, a “big man”, and he does not intend to let that go.

So he will walk this road alone, with the shadow of what he has done forever falling over him and dogging his steps, as Vir tries to sway him onto the right path, but, true to his friendship with Londo, will never abandon him, even when things get really bad. Vir will always be there for Londo, even if Londo may not return the compliment.

General notes:
While this is a decent episode and has something of a shock ending, it has many many flaws. Some of this may be due to the fact that it is one of the few that JMS did not write himself, but farmed out. Though it has to be said the main plot is very well written and with just the right amount of tragedy and a very realistic ending, the subplot with Sheridan and the “hitch-hiking alien” is poor, ripped right out of the worst episodes of the likes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in essence it doesn't add much to the story other than give the captain a role in an episode in which otherwise he would not figure. The “Sector 14” idea is really nothing more than a clumsy setup to ensure he knows about Babylon 4, as perhaps JMS realised one day that the captain could not have been aware of this event, and needed a way in for him, because after all, it will be integral to the later plotlines. The idea that Sheridan could figure out the messages being sent to him by the alien while the Markab could not is a little disparaging of the aliens: they're quite a religious lot, as we'll find out in the next episode, and should really have been more in tune with what was being broadcast. But once again, a human has to save the day.

Franklin has little or nothing to do in this episode, nor indeed does Ivanova. Garibaldi is the only one who sees any action, and that's mostly because he's the one who follows Sheridan's Starfury to Sector 14 and retrieves him, but other than that all he does is talk to the captain about baseball, and in the process hand over his unauthorised recording of the events of “Babylon squared”. It is a thin subplot, and there's not room to stretch it to allow the other main characters do much, if even anything, within it.

Darkness Rising

As we head towards the climax of season two, and towards the “great war” of which Sheridan speaks in the opening titles, I'll be showing you little clues that point the way towards the outbreak of this mighty conflict, which will actually in effect stretch over two more seasons. Without of course giving anything away, I'll just be nudging you and saying “remember that. That's going to be important.”

The first inkling we have of a great darkness coming --- other than the dire predictions that Delenn and, to a lesser extent, G'Kar and even Kosh have made leading up to this --- is when Londo declares that his path is set, his people are on their way back to what he believes as their rightful place as rulers of the galaxy, and nobody and nothing can stop what is to come to pass. Although belligerent and cocky, there's a certain sense of unease, even fear and dread as he speaks, realising that events which he put in motion (or which he allowed himself to be the agent of setting in motion) are far darker, deeper and more terrifying than he had at first realised.

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2.18 "Confessions and Lamentations”


An overdue Markab transport turns out to have been subject to some unidentifiable virus that has killed everyone on board; Sheridan is incensed to learn that Warren Keffer has been conducting unauthorised excursions in pursuit of the strange ship he once saw in hyperspace (see “A distant star”) and orders all such activity curtailed, as he knows this is a Shadow ship Keffer saw, and the importance of not playing his and Delenn's and Kosh's hand too soon. Franklin is concerned that there have now been four deaths of Markabs on the station, all apparently due to natural causes. Something is not right. It turns out that all the Markabs on the vessel - which is towed back to Babylon 5 and which the Markan doctor there initially demands is sealed, but is overridden by Franklin, who has discovered the truth - as well as the four “natural deaths” on the station are due to the contraction of a disease known to only have existed once in Markab history, on one island whose inhabitants were noted for being promiscuous. The Markabs believed, when the population was wiped out, both that it was a judgement from their gods, punishment for the wickedness of the islanders, and that the plague had been confined to that island.

Now that it has resurfaced, it is a taboo subject, somewhat like AIDS was originally, and the stigma attached to it is one of great shame to the aliens. The Markab doctor, Lazarenn, tells Sheridan and Franklin that within a short time, every Markab on the station will contact the virus and die. Research on the subject has been so minimal, with the Markab believing only the impure are affected, that Lazarenn does not know if the disease is transmissable to other races. When he finds out about the fact that his friend has been working, under almost no budget and with complete opposition from his government, on a cure, Franklin directs the entire resources of Babylon 5 towards helping him.

Sheridan issues an executive order placing Babylon 5 under quarantine, and when the word gets out as to why this is happening, a climate of fear descends on the station, which turns to hatred, as such things often do. When a dead Pak'Mara is found, seemingly healthy, Franklin worries that the disease has begun to jump species, and other races could now be susceptible to its effects. Dr. Lazarenn, scandalised by the treatment of his people as they are called in for tests to see if they are infected (essentially implying they are immoral) declares that they will segregate themselves from the rest of the station, gathering together in one place, which Franklin warns is the worst possible thing they could do. Concentrating in one group will only speed the progress of the disease, but Lazarenn will not relent, and believes their purity will save them from the wrath of their gods.

Franklin is mildly disgusted when, on ordering his doctors to enter an isolation unit wherein the dead Pak'Mara lies, they all shuffle their feet and look around, reluctant to do so and possibly expose themselves to the virus. He snaps that he will go in, but then Lazarenn appears and offers to take his place. He will remain within the isolation unit, and comment and observe from there, thus preventing any possible spread of the disease to medlab. Delenn comes to Sheridan with an odd, but brave request: she wishes that she and Delenn be allowed enter the place where the Markab have segregated themselves, in order to minister to, comfort and help the aliens. Sheridan is staggered at her generosity and - well, for the want of another word, humanity - after all, she does not know that the disease will not affect Minbari, and it well may. She is willing to risk death for a people she hardly knows, just to bring them solace and to ensure they don't die alone. Choking back emotion, the captain agrees.

In the isolation unit in medlab, Dr. Lazarenn begins to show symptoms, and knowing his time will be up soon, exhorts Franklin to start running some tests while he can. Inside the Markab area, Delenn and Lennier wander through an atmosphere of despair, fear, panic and bitter hope and desperation, trying to bring what words of comfort they can to a people they know are beyond all hope. There is nothing they can to to stop the disease, merely ease the passing of those who are infected by it. Perhaps it will be enough. The tests on the Pak'Mara come through, and it is not good news: the plague has jumped species. This time, though, Franklin is in no mood for hesitation from his staff, and orders them to autopsy the alien and look for some answer, something they can use to defeat this plague. Smarting at the lash of his tongue (and perhaps at their own cowardice) they rush off to carry out their orders.

Finally, a cure, or a possible cure, or at least something to combat the plague, is discovered, and Franklin rushes to the isolation area to begin distributing it to the Markabs. But when the doors are opened, there are only two living beings left standing: Delenn and Lennier, among a sea of Markab corpses. Every single one of them has died.

QUOTES
Keffer: “There's something out there!”
Ivanova: “Yes, there is. There's something out there. There's also something in here. The something in here is me giving you a direct order. If there's some part of that sentence you don't understand, Lieutenant, I'll be glad to explain it to you for the next four months while you watch Zeta Squadron go on missions without you!”

Delenn: “You were asleep.”
Sheridan: “Oh no no: I was meditating.”
Lennier: “The sound you were making, this is part of human meditation?”
Sheridan: “Oh now, I don't snore.”

Franklin: “They were all killed by some sort of plague or disease that was brought onto the station by your people. Now I want to know: how contagious and how terminal?”
Dr. Lazarenn: “It is one hundred percent terminal, and one hundred percent contagious.”

Garibaldi: “When people get scared they start looking for scapegoats. Trust me, this is gonna get real ugly, real fast.”

Lazarenn: “How do I know this is not a conspiracy on the part of your world to destroy my people? For all I know, this disease was planted in our drinking water, our food. Nothing happened until we began coming here. Perhaps it is your own immorality that has contaminated us!”

Ivanova (on monitor): “Some of the more extreme human groups think they've come up with the solution: wipe out the Markabs, wipe out the problem.”
Sheridan: “Seems we've heard that before.”

Sheridan: “They're not your people, Delenn.”
Delenn: “I was not aware that similarity was necessary for the exercise of compassion.”

Delenn: “All life is transitory, Captain. A dream. We all come together in the same place, at the end of time. If I don't see you again here, I will see you in a little while, in a place where no shadows fall.”

Delenn: “Lennier, she has been separated from her mother. Please find her.”
Lennier:”How?”
Delenn: “Faith manages.”

Lazarenn: “Sometimes the test is not to find the answer, but to see how you react when you realise there is no answer.”

Barman: “Hey! What do you call two billion dead Markabs? Planetary redecoration! Ha ha! News! News gives me the creeps. You know, I heard it was the Vorlons who poisoned them. You know how they are!”
Franklin (sotto voce): “Nothing changes..”

Parallels
It's quite ironic that the doctors and nurses on Franklin's staff, sworn to preserve life and give theirs if necessary in the furtherance of their practice, shy from entering the isolation unit, yet when faced by a Markab, who is certainly infected by this disease - which could quite easily be fatal to humans too - and who holds out his hand for assistance, Garibaldi, the tough guy who usually professes if not an aversion to then a general tolerance of aliens, has almost no hesitation in gripping the Markab's hand and helping him up off the floor. A pretty stunning moment, encapsulating in one tiny scene the fact that the security chief has more humanity and more self-sacrifice in his little finger than the whole of medlab, Franklin excluded.

IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
None really: the only real reference to the plot at all is Keffer's quest to discover what the Shadow ship is. Other than that, it's a self-contained episode that, in effect, you could watch without having seen any of the rest of the show. And surely one that, had you watched it and not been a fan, would encourage you to get into the show. (Also see new section “Together we're stronger”)

QUESTIONS?
It's an unsubstantiated rumour, even a wild accusation that the barman voices at the end of the episode, but could it be true? Is it possible that the Vorlons had some hand in the destruction of the Markab people? Were they some sort of experiment, for later use in what is to come? A whole planet used as laboratory test subjects for a new (or very old) biological weapon? Imagine the power any race would wield if it held such a weapon, and controlled the antidote, assuming there is one. It's food for (very dark) thought.

Absent friends
Just as Delenn did not figure in the previous episode, but more than makes up for her absence here, so this time there is no sign at all of Londo or his attache. G'Kar remains an unknown quantity, and if the Vorlons had anything to do with the Markab extinction, Kosh is not around to confirm or deny, or more likely, be inscutable about it.

Together we're stronger
We see from this episode that some sort of attraction is beginning to develop between Delenn and Sheridan. This section will concentrate on how, whether it be individuals, races, fleets or whole planets, the coming war will only be won by a concerted, joint effort, and old enemies are going to have to work together. Season three and four, particularly, are an exercise in and example of what can happen when people put aside their differences and work together. It will also highlight how this can go badly, sometimes tragically wrong.

As Delenn prepares to enter the Markab isolation area, Sheridan, touched by her willingness to sacrifice herself (something that will be picked up on and expanded in an episode or two) asks her, next time she sees him, to call him “John”. This, coupled with the dinner he attends near the opening of the episode (a return of the favour for when he invited her out to dinner shortly after her transformation: their first date as it were) shows that he is no longer seeing her as an ambassador only, as an ally or even as an alien: feelings are starting to grow inside his heart (and, he must hope, in hers too) that will hopefully burgeon into something far deeper. When she touches his face and promises to meet him “in a place where no shadows fall”, there is of course added significance in the choice of words here, given the name of their enemy.

SKETCHES
Ambassador Delenn

We have heard much about the Minbari ambassador; how she sacrificed her very identity at the end of season one to become this new hybrid, and how this has been received by her peers, leading to her being dismissed from the Grey Council by Neroon and the others. We have seen how she abhors violence but is prepared to use it when there is no other choice (particularly in “All alone in the night”, when we get an inkling of the steel that resides beneath her otherwise placid, almost unassuming shell) and now we see how great her capacity for compassion is.

Realising there is nothing she can do to save the Markab, unless Franklin comes up with an antidote or cure in the eleventh hour (in the event, it's the twelfth hour and far too late when he does) she requests permission to go into the isolation area and try to comfort the aliens. She does not at this point even know if she will survive: the virus could very well affect her people too, and Lennier, unquestioning and unafraid, ready to follow her into fire, accompanies her without a word of protest or caution, wanting only to serve her, and if necessary, die with her. She is not making a grand gesture here: she does not announce it to the station or have a big crowd gather to watch her make the entrance. She does so quietly, without fuss and without the slightest hesitation. In this one selfless act, she shows herself to be more human than anyone else on the station.

While inside, she relates a story to a Markab child she had befriended before the plague was confirmed as on the station. She tells of how, while quite young, she got lost in the city but found her way to the temple (presumably, though it's not confirmed, of Valen) and stayed there, believing she would be safe. She fell asleep and awoke to find a mighty figure looming over her, smiling. The apparition (again, we must assume this was Valen) told her she would be all right, that he would not allow any harm to befall “one of his children”, and shortly afterwards she was reunited with her parents as they found her in the temple. Yes, the story has an uncomfortably direct parallel with one of the parables in the Bible, almost ripped off, you could say, but it does show her faith in Valen and that he was watching over her even at that early age. Given what we will learn in season three, this account might very well be fanciful, exaggerated or even the dream of a lost child, but it does clearly illustrate the fact that, even then, the gods of the Minbari were looking out for Delenn, aware that she was someone special, with a destiny to fulfill, a great task to perform. Again, when we get into about mid season three, this will take on much greater significance and may even suggest an explanation.

The parallel of course is obvious: Delenn is telling the Markab child that she, too, was lost once but was reunited with her parents, mostly through having faith. Just at that moment, in a perfect example of pin-sharp writing, Lennier arrives with her mother. The joy of seeing this child reunited with her parent though is immediately tempered by the sudden stumble of the child, as Delenn and Lennier realise/remember that all of these people, all of them, are fated to die, and there is nothing they can do about it. They may have managed to have produced one moment of joy for both child and mother, but it is fleeting. A small victory, perhaps, but the true defeat lies ahead.

After her ordeal, Delenn is typically philosophical about the future, hoping that people will learn from this tragedy and be kinder to one another, and also not hide behind religious dogma and superstition when danger threatens. She is of course engaging in wishful thinking, as we see by the callous attitude of the barman in the final scene. But if nothing else, this whole episode has shown her that life is indeed precious, and if she has feelings for John Sheridan, it may be time to share them with him.

Messages
You'd have to be blind not to see the clear message being put across through the story of the Markab plague, and although Franklin compares it to the Black Death of the fourteenth century, it's of course more closely linked with the rise and spread of AIDS in the 1980s. Fear, distrust and paranoia turn to vengeance, retribution and accusation as the Markab are blamed for bringing the disease aboard the station, and Lazerenn relates how many of his people, believing the planet itself had become cursed by immorality, left to go to other worlds, thus propogating the spread of the disease. Ignorance and pride, mixed in with a healthy (or not so healthy) dose of religious fervour and panic, led those who believed they were pure to abandon their homeworld, never believing or even conceiving that they too were infected, and that by travelling they were condemning others to their fate.

It's not mentioned whether other races fell ill outside of B5, but what is incontrovertible is that the Markab race, as a whole, has all but ceased to exist now. Franklin postulates that some random Markabs may survive on distant planets, but they will be few and far between, and probably in hiding when the word spreads about what has happened. It's clear too that, had the Markabs stayed separated and accepted the help of medlab, the virus could have been beaten before it was too late. As ever, fear, distrust and a belief that their god would save them led the Markab to inadvertently speed up the spread of the disease, and their own destruction. It may be that here, JMS is saying that if we ignore epidemics like AIDS and SARS, try to isolate those who are infected instead of helping them, we may end up doing more harm than good. Fear is the real enemy, and it only triumphs when we give in to it.

There's also the age-old message of governments protecting themselves by ignoring a problem. Not wishing to be the ones to admit that their people may be immoral, the Markab government refused to fund any research into the disease, leaving Lazarenn basically on his own. They were more worried about losing their positions and their power than in helping save their people, and even indeed themselves. In a way, they brought about their own destruction. Harking back to my “Together we're stronger” section, this is proven to be the case when Markab (or at least, Dr. Lazarenn) and human doctors work in concert to try to determine what the disease is, how it works and how it can be defeated. Add in Delenn's self-sacrifical and selfless compassion offered to the dying aliens, and you have perhaps one of the first and best (if ultimately futile) examples of races working together for a common goal, without thought of territory, religion or any differences.

This ain't Star Trek!
Along with season one's “Believers”, and yet to come season three's “Passing through Gethsemane”, this is one of the saddest and most moving episodes in the series. I was wiping away tears while writing this, and they were nothing compared to the amount I wept when I saw this originally. Another example of how Babylon 5 was so different from Star Trek, or any other science-fiction series, where almost always (though, to Star Trek: the Next Generation's credit, there were some “dark” storylines and the good guys did not always win, to say nothing of Deep Space 9) there was a last-minute solution and the day was saved. In that universe, a dead crewmember suddenly coughed and was not dead after all, or a planet doomed to destruction had the catastrophe averted at the eleventh hour. In Babylon 5, this does sometimes happen but not always, and this is a fine example of a time when it does not.

Watching this for the first time, anyone who was unfamiliar with the series would be expecting, as Franklin and Sheridan rush to the isolation area with the cure, that they would be in time, and it's a great shock and a cold water-barrel of reality dumped over our heads when the doors open and there is not one single Markab left alive. Yes, there is a cure, but there is no longer anyone who can benefit from it. It's a sobering piece of writing, fantastic drama, and though it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth, you come to realise that taste is the real world. In the real world, the hero does not always triumph, the guy seldom gets the girl and the bomb usually does go off. Though this is just drama and not real, it at times comes so close to reality that you have to remind yourself you're watching a TV show.

Now that's good writing!

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