Babylon 5 Season 5 Wrap Up

Transcript

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I have just finished watching the fifth season and all of Babylon five, the series for the first time.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen and I have also just finished watching Babylon five for the first time.

Jeff: Again, specifically season five of Babylon five. We got all the way through.

Brent: That's right. That's right. And since we are here at the end of the season, you know what that means? Season five wrap up. Woo woo. And we should have like, hold on, hold on. I got it. I gotta, I gotta it. Watch this, watch this. Look. Jeff's gonna have fun editing this later on. Here we go. You ready? Season five wrap up time.

Okay

Jeff: I think our algorithm numbers just shot through the roof. People love watching. Two white guys sit down and dance

Brent: with, with my, my arms jiggling right

Jeff: right?

Brent: Sorry folks, I just on, on behalf of, uh, myself and Jeff and everybody, I just wanna apologize for what you just witnessed.

Jeff: I'm truly sorry for our actions and the impacts and consequences of our actions.

Brent: if anyone's eyes are burning, just go get a little water, wash your eyes out, you'll be good

Jeff: It's gonna be fine.

Brent: little

Jeff: Now we will. Now we will come back after we do the movies, maybe a few other things. We're gonna do an overall series wrap up of all of Babylon five, but today we're just gonna be focused on Babylon five.

Brent: That's not the only thing we're gonna be focused on though,

Jeff: What else Are we focusing

Brent: Well, we are gonna be doing a giveaway.

Jeff: giveaway? Yes.

Brent: You get a giveaway, you get a giveaway. You okay? No, no, no. Actually we only got a couple of these to give away today, but we are giving away the super cool three D printed p, p g by our friend Wash.

Thank you. Wash. You're amazing. This thing is awesome. It feels so good in my hand. It's, you know, I've, it's got some weight to it, you know, it's not heavy, but it does have, have a bit of weight. It's got some, uh, it, it's just so detailed. So many little, every time I look at it, I feel, I feel like I find a new detail in this thing. We're giving a couple of these away. Jeff, should we do one right now? Let's do it.

Jeff: Let's do one in a little bit.

Brent: Why do you, do you do this every

Jeff: I do, I am kind of the miser in this whole thing. We're gonna do it in a little bit and then we'll, we will close up, stick around because we're gonna give the, the final one away in the final moment. So stick around. We're gonna do it through the show. Um, give these away. And the people that are entered to win are current Patreon subscribers.

And so thank you very much. We've had a nice, um, an impressive boost in this in the last couple of weeks. Welcome a lot of new people on the Discord, which is awesome. That, like, that is the place to be.

Brent: Since we know that we can, we actually have the ability to project back in time. Jeff, I just wanna say to everybody out there, if, if you're not signed up on Patreon, you've got about 30, maybe 40 minutes to get your subscription in. Like from right now. Whenever you're feeling this message, come through the ether 30, 45 minutes and, and we could pick your name.

Jeff: It's very possible.

Brent: Now, Jeff, so we're gonna do a giveaway.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: Giveaway's. Cool. Uh, you know, one of the hallmarks of this show is the games that we like to play.

Jeff: I love

Brent: Now, there's typically the rule of three, uh, which we're not playing today. We're suspending those rules as, as per normal for us with these season wrap-ups. That's where we limit ourself to a certain number of references of a different science fiction show.

We're not, and that doesn't mean we're gonna go wild. We're just not gonna, we're not gonna keep track. Uh, also, at the end of a show, we have our prediction game where we predict the next week's episode based on title alone, blah, blah, blah. If you guys have been around, you know that spiel. We don't have an episode next week, Jeff, like for the first time since we started this, this series.

We don't have an episode next week,

Jeff: God, that's so wild.

Brent: we're gonna suspend that. And I, Jeff, I think you and I talked about this just a little bit, uh, we're gonna suspend the prediction thing for the movies.

Jeff: We are.

Brent: Like that's, we're just, we'll take the movies as they come. No problem. Um, uh, now we're not playing that game either, but, but there is one game that we can play this to. There is one game that we can play today, and that game is called,

Jeff: Time to pay the piper.

I am glad that's the last time we're gonna hear that drop. I was so excited when that happened in the episode. I was just like, oh, it's so perfect. We pulled it in and it just, it's lame but it cracks me up a little bit every time. So, but I'll be happy to see that one. Go

Brent: All right, nerd.

Jeff: fine. Nerds.

Brent: That makes me giggle every time.

Jeff: Gosh. Yeah. See way back in season four and the wrap up for that one, we both made predictions as to what we thought the season five overall arc in the storyline was gonna happen was gonna be. So, Brent, do you remember what you said season five was gonna be about?

Brent: I do,

Jeff: That's good. It'd be weird if you didn't. It'd be a awkward section of this, uh, recap this wrap

Brent: let, let me pull up my note real quick. I didn't copy it over. All right. So all the way back in season five, so what we were given was the title because we do title alone. The title of season five overall was called Wheel of Fire.

Jeff: Yep.

Brent: And I said that Delin, basically at the end of season four, delin had a voiceover and she just telegraphed for us everything that season five was gonna be about.

There was gonna be a telepath war, the dra Warlando was gonna be emperor, although she said it was gonna be really early in the next season. Uh, Londo and Dakkar were gonna have some working out of their differences to do. And Bester was gonna definitely try something. And I thought he was gonna make his, he was gonna complete his full heel turn where he's kind of gone from like enemy to frenemy, to partner to kinda back to frenemy again.

Like this was gonna be like the full gu duco evil turn, uh, that he was gonna do. And, uh, that he was just always gonna be like the big, bad guy of the show. That was my prediction.

Jeff: so Nu and Kar did their working out his stuff. That definitely happened. There was telepath stuff. I don't think it was the telepath war.

Brent: that was the telepath war, Jeff.

Jeff: I don't

Brent: I think if you, I think if you asked j m s, that's the telepath war. That's what he is calling it.

Jeff: if that was the telepath war, that was, yeah,

Brent: That was you, you know, you know what we would call that? Where I'm from, it was a kerfuffle.

Jeff: A kerfuffle.

Brent: It was just a kerfuffle.

Jeff: like that. A dust up, right?

Brent: Yeah. If you're from way out there, it's a kerfuffle from here.

Jeff: What else we have in there? Uh, Londo did become emperor, um, literally like in the second to last episode. So, or third to last episode. Really? 'cause

Brent: Real early in the next year.

Jeff: not so much. So, you know, I mean, definitely like touched on some points in there and Londo dakkar stuff was fundamental to the season.

So I'm gonna give you a 0.35 on this one.

Brent: 35%. I'll take it. Seems a little low, but, okay. What'd you say Mr. Big stuff.

Jeff: yeah, I'm just trying to really build that, uh, cushion for my score. My score here. I was like, this is gonna be a brand new Babylon five. We're talking t n t money, big production, new captain,

Brent: Aht.

Jeff: xo. It's Dynomite get, I'm not gonna, I can already feel that in my throat. We have a lot more to talk about. I have a new captain, new xo, and there's gonna be some sort of a conflict to bring them on board. Maybe that'll be something with the Telepaths. Then we're gonna see where Sheridan is gonna operate out of, like where the government is gonna run from and how he sets up his cabinet of advisors.

Brent: well I'll give you, we got a new captain. We, however, did not get a new XO and it was not a conflict that brought them on board.

Jeff: No.

Brent: Um, we did see where Sheridan set up his deal first on Babylon five and then on Minbar we didn't see anything about his cabinet of advisors, though he really, really didn't do anything with that at all.

So I'm gonna do the math on that and I. Uh, 0.15.

Jeff: All right. Yeah, I like that. That's good.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: So that's what we thought this season was gonna be about. Clearly it was about, uh, very different things, uh, for both of us. Although, you know, we kind of flew over and cro dusted some of the, some of the high level pieces.

Brent: Jeff, what, what does crop dusting mean to you out there in, in, in, uh, the west coast?

Jeff: Well, it's got a,

Brent: curiosity, what Crop dusted some stuff. What, what do you mean when you say that? Just add

Jeff: a, it's got a couple meanings. The one I'm using is, uh, we kind of did a high level flyover.

Brent: Uhhuh.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: Yeah, we do the other one, but I have a mute button and you won't hear that.

Brent: I just listen, I just wanna know what we're talking about. That's all. I'm just, I'm trying to force clarity. See, I listen to the Star Fleet Leadership Academy. I'm forcing clarity, you know, uh, the leadership thing and, and here we go.

Jeff: So that's what we thought this season was gonna be. Right. What, Brent, were your overall impressions of season five?

Brent: So I've been looking over my notes over the last couple of days and my note from episode one I think pretty much sums up my feelings on season five as a whole,

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: like almost to the point that it kind of just set, it's like, it's like this episode sort of set the tone for what the season was gonna be. Uh, this is what I said, this episode is exactly what I expected, but it was different.

It felt incomplete, but I'm okay with that. You see, I expected the telepath war. I say we got one. You might not, but certainly there was a dust up with the telepaths, right? Uh, it was different. It felt, Jeff, to your point, incomplete. And you know what, I'm okay with that. I expected launder to become emperor, particularly earlier in the season.

He did become emperor, but it was different and it feels incomplete, meaning the story is not complete of Londo and, and the emperor. Whatever happened with, uh, David and the eyeball thing, we never, like, there just, just things get how, how does, there's so much of what happened between Londo in, in receiving the eye and then getting to war without end part two, like, and that story feels incomplete, but you know what, I'm okay with that.

I expected Sheridan to have to forge this alliance together. The political intrigue and the, yeah, that, that, that's kind of what happened, but it was not as in the forefront as I thought it might be. It was different and, and it, it certainly, certainly doesn't feel like they dove into it as much. It feels incomplete, but Jeff, you know what?

I'm okay with it. Sleeping in light made me okay with everything, and I'm still riding on that high. I really am. Uh, overall though, this is a weird season for me. Jeff. I don't know about you. It's just a weird season. I had some highs look really high highs. My favorite season opener of the series was right here in season five.

Uh, there was an awesome story arc for Lockley that was played super slow, but I love where it wound up. The last bunch of episodes, like from 16 to 22, the last third of the season. Excellent episodes. Really good at like the kind of episodes I came to expect from j m s after going through season four.

You know, it was also a season of some really low lows, the entire Byron thing. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have done Byron at all, but it could have been condensed, like two or three episodes and then move it on to Lita into the telepath and let Lita be bad for the whole season. Like that had been really super cool.

Um, there were also just some weird episodes, Jeff, that in and of themselves with like, it was a fine episode. They, we, I feel we said this, this isn't okay episode. It was fine, but why, why is it here? It doesn't feel like it belongs Lanier in a training op fine episode, but why is it here? The other one where the, where the Ranger trainees came to the station.

Jeff: A learning curve.

Brent: Good episode.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Why here though? Uh, the lower decks episode, a view from the gallery, um, even, even Best's Cycore episode. Cool concept. But why here? Like, that just felt like a random, we gotta fill up a space in the, in the, here's an idea from season two that we didn't get to, and I gotta fill out 22 seasons.

I wasn't there, or 22 episodes, like, uh, and, and, and even, even, uh, a very long night of Londo Malari. Now, that was a fantastic episode. That episode held the number one spot in our ranking for a record 21 weeks, but it's still in a weird place. You know, that, that was a lot of what this was like. There's Byron, and then there's, okay, that was fine, but what's it doing here?

And we only have so many episodes left. Why are we talking about this right now? And then wrapped up with. Some really fantastic episodes at the end. So overall for me, Jeff, as I look at all of that, the lows kind of lasted longer. The Byron thing really overshadows this whole season to me, even though it ended in like the fir, like it ended like at episode 11 or 12, something like that.

Like we had a whole half of the season without Byron, but he still, they kept talking about him and that sort of o overrides a lot to me. Um, I think, I think we took up more minutes with the low episodes than we did with the high episodes, like significantly more. At

the same time, you have to consider what happened with the show as a whole getting canceled back in season four, and then suddenly getting picked back up and j m s suddenly having to reboot what got wrapped up already. You know, like that, that's a hard road to hoe. Let, let's, let's say that is. But as we're considering season five, we just have to consider what was actually given to us, not necessarily the circumstances around it.

So where I come down to where I'm gonna boil it all down is, I'm not sure which one I rank higher season one or season five. I, I li season one was fine. You know, it definitely the world building, definitely the, you just sort of feel like you're spinning your wheels in a little bit. But it was fine, like very few episodes of that season.

Did I just absolutely ahorre and hate from what I can remember. I dunno, maybe we'll go back and do the second time and be like, wow, I really hated the season. I don't know. Uh, but I, I, I'm just not really sure. But I will tell you this, between season one and season five, those two seasons are either number four or five in my ranking.

Like, that's, that's just where they're gonna fall. So that's my overall impression. Jeff, how about you?

Jeff: I, I agree with so much of what you just said, and I just, I just have to read like this. One note I have in my, I have a bullet list here, and this one note, uh, might actually be worse than season one. Maybe I.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah, on balance, right. You know, and, and, and really, I think now when I think about it, season two

Brent: I, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jeff. Uh, you know, you might actually be getting ready to say this, so go ahead.

Jeff: I, I'm gonna stop saying it because this is more about a series wrap up than a season wrap up, so I'm not gonna compare it to season two. So did you wanna say something else?

Brent: Well, I was just gonna say, uh, ki I kind of like the way I felt about season two compared to season one. Season five's in the same boat. The highs were way higher than what season one gave us. The lows of this season though, for me, were lower than the lows of season one.

Jeff: Yeah, so there were eight or nine episodes of this season that were related to Byron or some other superfluous stuff, and those eight or nine episodes are like in the bottom 10 of all Babylon, five episodes. To me, that's just a blush, like just looking at it. I mean, it was, it was, it was rough. You know, there was some rough, rough stuff in this one.

We were, um, we were excited and, and like in your prediction it was there and how Delaine wrapped out season four, where there's the telepath war, there's Thera war, you know, and so like we got through the season, we don't even know for sure if that was the telepath war or not. And if it was the Telepath war, come on, come on.

We got, I don't know, eight minutes of the drop the whole time. Like they were actual, like we got little glimpses and they were in one episode and it was cool to see 'em. But I have so many more questions about 'em than I have answers. A lot like you because of sleeping in light. It was like this, it was, it was a tonic in one way and it was almost a slap in the face in another way of just like, do what?

These story points actually don't matter. They don't matter. Look at these really cool characters that we invested in and built even through this season. And speaking of characters, they really built up and set up in an amazing way. Gosh, I love the way that they sent Bester out in this season.

Brent: But I don't care. But I'm good.

Jeff: you know,

Brent: I'm

Jeff: I was, last week I was good with it. I'm not as good with

Brent: You're not good.

Jeff: just because, I mean, you said it like people talk, people talked about, we expected him to really be set up. As the big villain for the whole thing. And I'm sorry, a, after this and seeing him and that Cyco Cora's mother, Cora's father being his last go dude, dude's kind of a joke.

Brent: it was a waste of an episode. It really was. It

Jeff: mean, it was interesting. It was fun.

Brent: two, drop it in season one, season two, maybe even in season three for whatever reason. Like, like but what? Not any. Were past that. No.

Jeff: The uh, just the fact and, and, and yes, like you said, they had to reset. They had to re-pick things up. They had a lot. They were rolling. It was Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill, right. But still, so much time just spent spinning in one place, not moving forward, not getting us closer to any, not building a character in big ways.

Like I just feel there was a tremendous amount of wasted time in this season. We got to see the Interstellar Alliance, right? This was the big thing. Season four closed out on was Rising Star. And the theme through deconstruction of Falling Stars was the fate of the Alliance and Delen and Sheridan, how they brought it there.

But you know what I saw in season five was the Alliance was a cool name for the League of non-aligned worlds. Nothing changed whatsoever. It, I, I, I am wildly disappointed

Brent: The, the, the alliance was not that impressive. It really wasn't. Yeah.

Jeff: doomed to failure. All of that said the last third of this season, Brent. Oh my God,

Brent: So good.

Jeff: so good. Meander, walk, do whatever you need to do, right?

Have all these episodes. You could compress 'em. I'm not like you. I'm not saying Byron wasn't necessary one episode. One episode and move on. Right. The, those things that happened in all those other episodes,

Brent: by re rewrite, Byron Byron comes in looking for a home for his telepath friends. He's got all his telepath people there with him. He meets Lita, they engage in a relationship. Something awakens inside Lita, uh, the Telepath friends go wild and Byron gets killed at the end.

Jeff: Done. That's it

Brent: It, it could have been a two-parter, maybe one episode actually really would've been okay as well.

But, but then you set off Lita for the rest of the season?

Jeff: Yeah. And Lita at the end of this season was amazing. So the lead I wanted all along, right. It's Satalia we wanted all

Brent: it's Theta we got for two and a half minutes right before she got kicked off the show.

Jeff: Who we still pine for, right? Like, ah, she was awesome. I find it fascinating though, where, like you said, the very long night of Lao mal sat in that top spot until the very, until just last week.

I. The one episode that knocked it out, sleeping in Light. Those two episodes, best episodes of season five.

Brent: Let me, so can, can I stop you real quick, Jeff? 'cause this just occurred to me. All right. We, we assume very long night of Lana Malar really was probably originally planned for season.

Jeff: You're stealing my thunder,

Brent: Uh, am I, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. See, this is the, uh, good minds thinking alike here. Go ahead.

Jeff: So the top two episodes of season five, like the pinnacle of this season, are actually season four episodes. The very long night of Londo mal needed to happen in season four, before the wedding, before the jokes, before Londo and Jaar were just the comedy sidekicks to the show. It needed to happen then.

Now it happened in season five. It was produced, acted, all that stuff in season. It's a season five episode, a season four story, and I think that the fact that the highest points in this season were essentially from season four, says everything that I can say about my overall impressions of Season five.

Brent: That's not what I was gonna say.

Jeff: Oh, okay.

Brent: No, no. So, uh, if season four was not gonna be the fi, like go back with me to the beginning of season four p tens around P 10 as a network does not get canceled. Season five's on the horizon. We got season four. Let's play out season four. I'm not doing the finale episode yet here in season four.

We're gonna do that next year. You got one more episode to produce for season four? What episode are you gonna produce?

Jeff: The very long night of Londo mal,

Brent: Okay, so, hey, P 10 gets canceled, man. I've gotta put in a, a, a finale, but now I gotta kick out one episode that I really would like to do, but I'm just gonna kick it out because of different reasons.

Which 1:00 AM I gonna do Very long night of? Londono mal People will just understand that they had a a come to Jesus and they'll be fine.

Jeff: I guess,

Brent: So sleeping in light booted very long night of Londono Malari from season four.

Jeff: or deconstruction of Falling Stars did.

Brent: Well, no, no, no, no. Sleeping in, sleeping in light. Well, because they, we didn't get deconstruction falling stars until after they produced Sleeping in Light. See, like, they, they, they didn't do very long night of Lando mal.

Jeff: Oh, okay. I, I follow, I

Brent: they were going to do Sleeping in Light. Right? So sleeping in light, booted very long night of LA Mal once back in season four, and then sleeping in light booted very long night of Lara Mal from the top spot of our like LA mal. Very long night of Lara Mar.

Can't get away from sleeping in light from messing up. Its stuff like,

Jeff: And Laa mal wasn't even in it.

Brent: Right, right, right. So Jeff, you know, this season had a lot of great moments, so let's do this. Let's do a top three list. Let's do top three of your favorite moments, top three of your least favorite moments.

Jeff: Okay. I'm gonna start with my favorites.

Brent: Good place to start.

Jeff: Thanks.

In the number three spot. These are in no particular order, but I'm just gonna build it up anyway in the number three spot. Uh, Londo, um, Londo breaking and apologizing to Jaar. And I'm going to take a little liberty and I'm gonna stretch ahead a bunch of episodes in the same moment and say Jaar, um, uh, apologizing

Brent: Oh, so good. So good, Jeff. So

Jeff: Or forgiving, not apologizing, but Jaar, forgiving Londo. Um, this is a very specific scene, but I loved it and it shows us so much of what we missed because of this other storyline they spent a lot of time in. But that time when they're coming to arrest Lita and she gets the whole Olo to start, like tapping their fingers and drumming like that was heavy and ominous and, and she's just cool as a cucumber.

Like, look what I got, like, let's do this. Maybe my favorite moment in the whole season. Maybe this might be number one, sleeping in light. The transport, I'm gonna assume was j m s leaving and all of the ships falling in behind it. Oh, I, I just said it and I literally got chills and goosebumps. Like you, I don't know if you can see them, but like, like

Brent: I, I, yeah. Actually I can

Jeff: I got just saying, the scene, I got goosebumps from that, from my bottom three. You know, I, I took a little liberty earlier by combining two episodes. I'm gonna combine, I dunno, eight or nine of them. Uh, my singular number one, two, and three. Worst moment in this whole

Brent: three of 'em together,

Jeff: Yeah. All it's Byron. That's it? Yep. What about you? What are your top three and bottom three?

Brent: Oh, well, I'm gonna agree with Byron about the bottom three. Everything that was wrong about this season, like we can nitpick the other stuff. Um, Byron was worse than the way I felt about Lanier. I hated the linear storyline. Hated, hated the way they let Lanier go.

Byron was worse by more than threefold to take up all three spots. I, I, I, you cheated a little bit, but I'm gonna ride your coattails and cheat with you there, Jeff. All right. Uh, so, so top three. Top three. Um, you know, if you can make me feel something, you can make me laugh, you can gimme some emotion, you can make me cry.

Those are gonna be the moments that I love, right? Uh, my number three moment was when Garibaldi drug, the assassin guy back in to see Lita, and she's trying to break his mind and she goes, you forgot to carry the seven. It was so good. It was so good. Oh my gosh. I loved the, everything about Lita going bad was absolutely phenomenal.

That is the Lita we should have had, uh, not since the beginning, but we should have had her since really early in season five.

Jeff: Yeah. This whole, pretty much this whole, after the, the single episode with Byron, who had just occurred to me got more screen time in this season than Captain Lockley did. Just think about that.

Brent: It almost feels like he got more screen time than like, say Delin. I don't, that's not true. But it kind of feels like that because Delin was very much shunted to the side for the first 16 episodes of the season.

Jeff: Yeah. Sorry, I

Brent: Sheridan, so to speak. It was like Sheridan was too, like they were there, but yeah. Yeah.

Uh, uh, uh, other moments that I really liked. Um, I liked Londo and Jaar. Uh, Coming to Jesus together. I, I was thinking specifically of when Dakkar did the thing, 'cause that sort of sealed the whole deal, but even, even back in long night of Londo malaria. But remember when he is laying on the table and he looks over and he just sees dakkar and their eyes lock in that moment.

It was such a profound, profound moment, you know? Um, and then, you know what I really loved, I loved the discussion between Lori and Sheridan at the very end.

Jeff: Oh, wow. Yeah.

Brent: I loved that whole, uh, when, when he said, when he said, uh, Hey, can I ever come back this way again? And he says, no, the journey's over, but a new one begins.

Love it. Loved it. We've been here waiting for you. We've, you know, and you know what is, because I, I expected Sheridan to not die again. I expected him to. Yeah. When, when we knew that Lian had given him life. And when, well, I don't know about you, but to me, when Lian and the Lon and the Shadows all sort of went in my head, I was like, they're gonna come back for Sheridan when his 20 years is up.

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: Like that's, I, that might be why I've always thought that that Sheridan was Osh.

Jeff: right. It fed into that.

Brent: you know, that might be really where the genesis of that came from. I, I'm, I don't remember where that idea came from, but, um, like, and, and again, what I love about this is J M Ss wrote this show in such a way to use foreshadowing, you use shadow, some tropes, use compelling writing, compelling characters to say, this is the story.

I'm setting this story up. You see what's happening and we're gonna pay it off.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And, and you know, to end on that kind of a note, where Sheridan, when, when, when, um, was it a vava doing a voiceover was like a few days later we found his white star hanging out there and everything was sealed up shut. There was no way he could have gotten out, but he just wasn't there.

Like, yes, absolutely. Like I love that. Love

Jeff: good, it's good. Top three. There are a lot of great moments in this

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: How about Brent?

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: We create a great moment right now.

Brent: Okay.

Jeff: What do you say? We do a giveaway.

Brent: Yes, let's do that.

Jeff: Let's do it

Brent: I love giveaway.

Jeff: This'll be fun. Okay, so what I've done is I have taken all of our current subscribers and Patreon. I've put them into a spreadsheet and I'm gonna click this little button that it goes, boop, and it's gonna give me a name.

In the audio version of this, uh, I'm gonna play a little like drum roll sound

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: that I should have preloaded in. So here's the deal. I'm gonna say the name, you're on Patreon, so you can message us direct through that, uh, on through Patreon. Or you can email us at Babylon five first@gmail.com, the number five, the word first.

We're gonna need your contact info, um, to get this to you. So without further ado, This goes to

Fairy God. Fairy. Oh,

Brent: Whoa.

Jeff: yes. Fairy. I don't know if that's your, uh, on your gift certificate, but it's definitely on your Patreon Fairy, God fairy. You are now the proud owner of that P P G.

Brent: There you go. Very cool. Thank you. Fairy God feather. Please, uh, make sure that you, uh, uh, do that we'll. We'll make sure we get this out in the mail to you. Um, not bad. Good job.

Jeff: Yeah. I'm

Brent: God fairy. I wanna know, I wanna know more about that name. That's, that's an interesting name.

Jeff: In fact, if you would be so kind and generous when you reach out with your, your information, your shipping details, tell us a little story about your name. 'cause that's cool.

Brent: it'd be super cool

Jeff: Now we're gonna do one. We got one. We got a, we're gonna do another one. Uh,

Brent: right now.

Jeff: Should we, no, we'll do

another

Brent: I always say yes, but you're the one who, you know, pours water on. It says, no, we're gonna wait.

Jeff: I am a, I am, I am a total, total killjoy. Uh, we'll do another one here in a little bit, so stick around. Um, but yeah, fairy God, fairy. Congratulations. Thank you. And thank you fairy God fairy for supporting us. It means in the show. Thank you so very much.

Brent: Alright Jeff. Well that was fun. Always like doing giveaways. Always fun.

Jeff: doing that.

Brent: Uh, it is time where we have reached that part of the show. It is time to take a look for one final time, Jeff. At our 100% objectively, definitively immutable ranking of the episodes of the fifth season, we're gonna make them mutable for this one time only. We're gonna do this white elephant style. We've, we've come to do it this way over, over the, the season wrap up. So we're gonna do it here. Uh, here's what we're gonna do, Jeff. We're gonna go through the season, all right? And we're go quickly. This isn't gonna take very long, okay? We're gonna go quickly. Each one of us is gonna get to make three moves up or down. You can move one, and then the other person can, like, if you don't like where I move one, you can choose to move that one somewhere else. But once that one gets moved, that one can no longer be moved. And the only way that that one travels is if other episodes around it go up or down.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Does that make sense?

Jeff: I

think I follow,

Brent: So, so it's, it's, uh, you know, you can move it once, it can be moved a second time and otherwise it's just gonna depend on everything else going on around it. Fair enough. I.

Jeff: that's fair. Okay. I have, uh, I have here a document we can move the rankings around with.

Brent: Okay. Uh, oh. Oh, are you gonna put it up on the screen here for, for our YouTube folks?

Jeff: Yes. And so this will be on YouTube and for YouTube. I'm gonna do a little snap here in a second so I know where to make sure I get this edited in snap go up.

Brent: There we go.

Jeff: So what you're seeing now is our current ranking.

And so, um, who goes first on this?

Brent: Uh, well, I'm happy to let you go first, Jeff. Uh, you

Jeff: All right, so as

Brent: a age before beauty, as they say, where I come

Jeff: Wow.

Brent: Uh, here's the thing, hold on, hold on, hold on. For, for our audio listeners, um, I, I'm tempted to just read off all 22, but by the time I get to like the fifth episode, you guys are just gonna like, cross your eyes and be like, I have no idea what they're talking about.

So let's just do the current top five. Is sleeping in light. Very long night of Lando mal objects at rest, fall of Sari Prime, and all my dreams torn us under. Those are the top five. Um, the bottom five. Let's talk about those just for a second. That's gonna be in the Kingdom of the Blind, Paragon of Animals, strange Relations, Phoenix, rising Secrets of the Soul.

I honestly am not entirely sure that I remember what all these episodes

Jeff: I know,

Brent: but I think, I think I've got 'em.

Jeff: but I'll tell you this, all five of those episodes have something very much in common.

Brent: What's that? Oh, at the bottom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff: so, okay, so I can, I get three moves, so I'll make these changes here in, in real time, but, um, yeah, I'm good. I have no changes.

Brent: Oh, you do, you're not, you're not gonna do anything.

Jeff: Nothing.

Brent: You're just saying we got it right the first time.

Jeff: I think we did

Brent: All right. I'm gonna make a move.

Jeff: okay.

Brent: The Cora's mother, the Cora's father,

Jeff: Mm-hmm.

Brent: our new number one baby.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: No, I'm, no, no. It is staying right where it is.

Jeff: I was gonna say I have, I still have my moves.

Brent: I, I expected a little more, uh, uh, reaction out of you on that one. Uh, actually, Jeff, did this happen on, on on season four as well? I'm looking at this list going, I think everything's exactly where it should be. I think we got it right the first time around. I don't know if that's j because this happened in season four too, right?

We didn't make any moves in season four.

Jeff: Yeah, we got really good at

Brent: call this, this is, this is, we got better at it as the series went on.

Jeff: right? We

learned,

Brent: we got better at the ranking as the series went on.

Jeff: well, here it is,

Brent: no, I like it. This is it.

Jeff: this is it. This graphic will go out on, uh, on our social media and you can see it and we'll share it out there, but it's, it's here

Brent: Our Discord folks like to do stuff with these, with these rankings.

Jeff: They

Brent: Like I've, I've seen it. They do it over in red. You and I aren't allowed in there. We don't know what go goes on over there, but I know they pull stuff like this and

Jeff: well. They, they leak things out at different times and I always appreciate that. Just a quick up

there and then, uh, make a note so I can edit. That.

Okay.

Brent: Alright, Jeff, well, with that fun exercise, that was not a waste of time at all.

Jeff: Not at all.

Brent: We have reached this part of the show that we would be remiss, Jeff, if we didn't do this. It's time to boil this whole season down as a whole and see if season five has any messages, morals, meanings, holding up a mirror to society.

Is it giving us hope that things can be better in the future? And at the same time, how much is it delivering that message in its own unique Babylon? Five way you, my friend, get to do the entire season. This is your job, it falls to you this year or this this year. Yeah, this year. Uh, and this season to rank this season on a scale of zero to five white stars.

'cause we're doing white stars for season five. To see just how strong the message is and, and how Babylon, five of a way was it delivered?

Jeff: There were quite a few themes. And messages in this season. Um, I'm gonna hit on a co on the big ones, and one of them is a total cheat. I'll even let you know that I literally copy and pasted my notes from another episode because it was just so well said, uh, by the episode, uh, that, that really put this out there.

But there was a theme throughout, uh, throughout season four that came up, and it was about moving past those petty squabbles, battling over lines on a map, right? And finding a common cause and having shared values. I, I love this message and I love how it was presented. They built this interstellar alliance, this dressed up league of non-aligned worlds with this beautiful ideal of sovereignty for everyone.

Still having these shared values. Uh, you know, they're always, that they're working towards, they were sharing technology. They weren't interfering in, uh, in day-to-day operations for governments. It was this beautiful, beautiful vision that completely fell apart because so many of the people in the alliance were still worried about who had the most territory about, you know, who had the shiniest toy.

Just those petty, ridiculous squabbles. I love this message for all it brings, but I love the way Babylon five and season five brought it to us, and that it did not have a resolution. It just put it out there. This is the Babylon five thing, right? Here's the thing. You figure it out. And what we know is there were a few very key moments there at the end of the season that led to, uh, the Sari conflict.

Like, I don't know if that was really, you know, a war so much, but that was literally just like the, the brachii, the nars, the, the, the drowsy. Just, just not letting go of old stuff and losing sight. I loved Sheridan when he went chasing after them, when they went to try and capture or, or blow up Centa Prime.

He was so angry and so fired up. And it wasn't just that they were gonna go like genocide to Sari. He was mad because like, they were, they were tearing the, the, the dream apart. You know? It's like, here's this cool thing I'm literally handing you peace, collaboration. All unity, all the cool things. Unity with your sovereignty.

I'm handing it all to you, and because you care about this little stupid stuff, revenge at draws you general. We must have a revenge. What? Oh my God. Beautiful message. Excellently delivered from Babylon. Five. The next big lesson is a bunch of lessons. If you want to hear a lot of details on them, just watch the end of objects.

At rest. When Sheridan is recording a message to who we are assuming is David, that just lays out all of the messages of Babylon five, not only Babylon five, but that all these things were hit in this season. I'll just go through the list. Find an ally, a friend, a mentor that will not judge you that you can trust.

He said it was dela, but everyone has their person. Londo and Jaar became that for each other, right? Bitter rivals into trusted allies that weren't judging each other and could be implicitly trusted.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: You're gonna make mistakes. What's important is what you learn from them. Get up and be two inches taller every time you make a mistake.

Home's not a place. It's wherever your passion takes you. Friends, come and go. Lovers come and go. Enjoy them for who and what they are when they are there. Fight for what you believe in and never start a fight, but always finish it. He hit these bullet points and Brent, I mean, good God, that's Babylon five. You know you're gonna hear this again. I'll just tell you, you're gonna hear this list again when we do the series. Wrap up and look at this. All these things were, were solid throughout season five, but the last one I want to end on. Because I think that this is the most profound message in this fifth season.

And again, this isn't unique to the fifth season, but I have it here in my notes in all capital letters, two words, forgiveness saves,

Brent: Wow. Okay.

Jeff: londo.

Brent: I love this. I love this, by the way.

Jeff: It's, it's so powerful.

Brent: Mm-hmm.

Jeff: Londo asks, he apologizes, and then he shows up and he keeps being there. He lets himself get locked up for Jaar. He lets jaar throw up and he's, and he puts up with that, and then Jaar forgives him and he says, this line, my people can never forgive your people, but I can forgive you.

And we've already talked about this, right? You blow that up. If I can forgive you, that means you can forgive me. And this person can forgive that person and this person, that person. And eventually we can forgive everyone. But when you're not ha, when you don't, when you don't have that anchor weighing you down, that guilt, the shame, the, the energy that's just being sucked out of you because you're not forgiving a line that you've said often on this show that is so powerful.

Not forgiving. Someone is like swallowing, poison and expecting someone else to die. And we watched that for the better part of four Seasons. And in this season, we watched people forgive others. We even watched, not as explicitly, but we saw Sheridan, forgive Lanier,

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: let him come back. There's gonna be a price for what he did because forgiveness doesn't excuse what happened.

There's gonna be a price for what he did. But we can get through this. We can work. Through this, you shed that. You let it go and it will literally save lives.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Now I'm tempted to knock this down a couple white stars, just because Byron was in this season. I'm also tempted to knock this down a few spots because the way they did best or dirty and put 'em out in the co.

His mother Cora's father, but I'm not gonna do that. Brent, this season was replete with these messages. It was foundational and they took everything from the, the, the totality of Babylon five and pulled it into this season. This is a five white star season of Babylon. Five.

Brent: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Be, I mean, it kind of has to be right? Like this is the season that the rest of the series set up for. Like you're you, you get to the end and, Hey, here's my message. This is the end. This is the message. It's what it is, right? Like, yeah, yeah,

Jeff: They showed us. They showed us, and then through Sheridan they told us. And then in sleeping in light, they told us what they told, showed us. Right? Like it was all there perfectly.

Brent: yeah. Okay. I'm with you, man.

Jeff: Brent, that's it for our fifth season. That's it for Babylon. Five, the series.

Brent: Whoa.

Jeff: We're about to dive into the

Brent: Well, no, no. We cannot let that go. That easy. Oh my gosh.

Jeff: that's it. That's what we got. We're gonna dive into the

movies.

Brent: no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not letting this go that easy.

Jeff: What.

Brent: Do you remember? I know, I know you remember, you and I talk about it not infrequently sending out a message on Twitter or something like that to a group of Star Trek podcasters. There's a group of Star Trek podcasters.

You and I both happen to be in that group, and you're like, Hey, so I just started watching this Babylon five. I think I should document it in the form of a podcast. And you and I had done a couple guest spots together at some, and I think I reached out. I was like, Hey, I've been thinking about the same thing. You want to, you wanna hook up and do something together? And that spun into something which spun into something which eventually became this. And I mean, Jeff, if we ended, I mean, we could end right now and call this mission accomplished.

Jeff: We could this, this was the target.

Brent: The movies are extra. Crusade will be extra. The autobiographies will be extra. The other topic ideas we have will be extra. All the other stuff we got going on at the channel, that's all extra. This we did it. This is mission accomplished right here. As of right now, in this moment right here. Wow.

Jeff: I'm sitting in it for a second.

Brent: Let's go watch the sunrise.

Jeff: So this is the

Brent: You can make the sunrise.

Jeff: right, no. So here's the thing, right? Like this was the mission. The mission was for you and me. Two Star Trek guys, get together. Watch Baby One Five, the series. We did it.

Brent: Yep.

Jeff: We built all this stuff. Massive community, a bunch of, a bunch of content. Like all this stuff came outta that.

But you wanna know, do you wanna know what we really built in this friendship?

Brent: Yeah. I, I, I knew that's where you were going with that. And you're a thousand percent right?

Jeff: I mean, like we have friends in our community that we've built. That is great. But Brent, dude, I love you man.

Brent: Maybe me too, brother. Me

Jeff: for real?

Brent: Me too. This has been, this has been fantastic and this is, you know, when I was doing, be Me Up with Matt. Matt is a good dear friend to this day. One of my best friends. And Jeff, you're falling into that category as well. Like this is, this is what happens. This is why this, this is this right here.

You like, you, this relationship. This is the best part of podcasting. Everything else is awesome. Super dope and cool. This is the, the double blessing that

Jeff: Yeah. Right.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. So thank, thank you. Thank you for answering that call.

Brent: some times, there were some times Jeff, uh, some weekends. I know for sure. Maybe even some weeks. It was some weeks maybe where we spent more time together doing this than we did bl with our families.

Jeff: We did. Yeah.

Brent: They weren't frequent, like, you know, we, we, that that was a core value for us. Both shared, like families are first, but

Jeff: family always comes first, but you know, like with, you know, my, my, you know, my, there's a lot of traveling that happens in my family, and so we took advantage of that. It takes, um, this, this isn't a, Hey, look at the cool stuff we're doing, but it takes a tremendous amount of war. It isn't just getting together and shooting the breeze about, you know, Babylon five.

There's a lot that goes into this and I'm hoping that you all see that, like we've talked about, we, we, the, the, the proliferate, the, I dunno how you say the prolificness of us, but our proliferation of content or whatever.

Brent: which has more to do with quantity. The amount that we have put out has been tremendous.

Jeff: Yes. But.

Brent: I think we've done it at a high level too.

Jeff: That's what I'm saying is as you and I have, have, we we're, we're not gonna put garbage out. Um, and, and so like, that just, that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of planning and it takes a lot of partnership. You know, it takes give and it takes take. Um, and we've done both. Like we're, we've

Brent: I'll tell you, I'll tell you what else it takes, Jeff. We have to, we have to acknowledge this, uh, the incredible support system that we have around us, our, our wives specifically, um, our children, uh, the, the people, you know, even in-laws and grandparents and stuff who helped to get their children while the wife's gone.

So you and I can focus in on, and, and hammer out some stuff, you know, the few times we had to get ahead a few weeks or get caught up or, you know, whatever. So, yeah. Yeah. Mm. Jeff, we still have a whole series wrap up to do,

Jeff: I know we have, we have a lot more stuff to do, but, but you're right. We have to mark this point on the mountain because this was the top of the mountain at one point.

Brent: And but thi, and this is the point where we just say like, we'll do the wrap up. But that's looking back like, we're done. We're done. Talking about Well, we're, yeah, we're done with the first of this whole show. Yeah.

Jeff: Now we're gonna come back. We're gonna dive into the movies. In fact, next week we're gonna be here within the beginning. But before we get to the beginning, let's give away another P p G. Oh, wow. All right. You know the drill.

Brent: It's my favorite. Is my favorite. There

Jeff: in. All right. Does mean saying, hit the drum roll. And Ian Mauer. Oh, yes. Ian Mauer. Please contact Ian Mauer. Ian Mauer. Please contact us through your Patreon messages, or send an email to Babylon five first@gmail.com. And number five, the word first.

Brent: Ian, congratulations. You're amazing. You're awesome. And, uh, thank you.

Jeff: Ian's been around a while,

Brent: Ian's Been around a while.

Jeff: yeah, super cool. Super cool.

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: But, uh, yeah. Hey, um, yeah.

Brent: I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull an audible here.

Jeff: Uh oh.

Brent: I have one more p p g to giveaway.

Jeff: What?

Brent: do a surprise third giveaway on this show

Jeff: You know, uh, okay. I just closed the document, so

Brent: You can open it back

Jeff: Yeah, I can't, gimme a sec here. Whoa. Yeah. Click

Brent: Hey, while you're doing that all, and we're, we're in the thinking, the thanking the incredible support network, um, to Nia and Delin and Pax o' Ryan, uh, the, the Rangers and our Intel Za over at, uh, over on our Discord page, uh, IRA, who does so much work behind the scenes, you guys have no idea what she has done to help this show go forward.

Um, and, and really everybody else that's just been involved, uh, and done extra workforce, uh, Fabio, our friend Fabio, who's done some of our t-shirt stuff and, and you

Jeff: Quiz the quiz, show

Brent: quiz show.

Jeff: you've seen.

Brent: Absolutely. You know, and I'm gonna stop naming names 'cause I'm gonna forget people. But, uh, you know, all of you guys who have pitched in and helped out, um, in, in extra ways that, you know, People aren't getting paid.

Like this is just, they do it because they love the show. They, they love, um, Babylon five in the community. Jeff, we said a long time ago, the Babylon five community fan community is the best fan community I've ever been a part of. And I'm, I'm gonna stick by that.

Jeff: Heck yes.

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: Were you ready for our next winner?

Brent: let's do it.

Jeff: Um,

Brent: Third winner, fairy, God Fairy. And I, Ian,

Jeff: And Floren Baker. Flore Baker.

Brent: what? Okay. I need the, I need that name, name as well. I, I need words on that name before you, I will not send you this until you tell me what's up with

Jeff: Florin Ba. Flone Baker

is the

Brent: Florin Baker.

Jeff: Oh my gosh, that's

Brent: Flo is, that's what Delin made for, uh, Sheridan that one day, right? Flone Baker. Okay.

Jeff: have ourselves a Minbar chef who's now gonna be armed with a P P G

Brent: All right. Do you, do you get that with a side of Spoo? I

Jeff: prob, I don't know. It's min Bari.

Brent: Hey, listen, it's fusion. It's fusion,

Jeff: Yeah, right. Intergalactic

Brent: Interplanetary.

Jeff: There you go. Shoot. This was great. Uh, we're at the top of our mountain. We're there. We're giving out three PPGs. This has been a blast. I love these wrap ups. Thank you everybody so much for joining us. Remember, we've got a lot more content coming, so please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcast or you watch these videos.

Leave us a rating, review all that good stuff. Share, share this podcast, make sure people know it's out there. So until next time.

Brent: Hey, Jeff

Jeff: Yeah, man. What's up?

Brent: did okay. Did they really try to compare us to Waldorf and Satler? You know, the, the Muppet guys.

Jeff: Yeah, it was like our cover on the YouTube channel for a long time. Yeah.

Brent: All right. Well, I guess, I guess, Jeff, after all this time, we've, we've gotta give people what they want.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Hey, Jeff. Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Brent: what does President Clark use to tell time after Sunset?

Jeff: What does President Clark used to tell time after Sunset?

Brent: A night watch.