River of Souls

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 For the First Time, Not a Star Trek Podcast. My name is Jeff Akin and I am the one who was.

Brent: and I'm Brent Allen. And I am the one who will be.

Jeff: We're watching Babylon 5 for the first time for you, the one who is.

Brent: That's right. Jeff and I are two veterans, star Trek podcasters searching for the important sci fi messages. That Babylon five is delivering in its own unique way.

Jeff: And since this is not a Star Trek podcast, to keep us on point, we play a game called The Rule of Three. This is a game that limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode in total. That's it. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund.

Brent: And if we make one of those references, you're going to hear. All right. Now this part of the deal is, uh, we like our games, right? Well, at the end of every episode, one of the games we play is we make predictions about what the next episode is going to be, or in this case, the next movie is going to be, and this is the part where we stopped to see if we got it right.

So Jeff, what did you think river of souls was going to be about?

Jeff: I think we agreed this is definitely going to be, uh, Soul Hunters kind of an episode and I thought this was going to be the origin story of Murder, Soul Hunter from the eponymous episode. What did you think it was going to be about?

Brent: Um, soul hunter. That was all I had. No, I had nothing else. Soul hunter and my head, literally a river of souls going through. I didn't understand that it was the matrix in there, you know?

Jeff: Right.

Brent: Well, Jeff, uh, that was what you and I thought this episode was about, but for folks out there who may not have seen this movie in a while, Uh, and there's a good chance people listening to this show did not watch the movie prior to coming in here. Uh, just understanding the reputation of this film. Uh, or maybe somebody who's never, ever seen the movie before at all.

They're just hanging out with us because you and I are so cool. Why don't you take a few moments and remind the folks out there exactly what River of Souls was all about.

Jeff: Have you ever realized that everything is chill on Babylon five until Sheridan or Garibaldi? I can't even say simple words. I,

Brent: Well, we haven't said Garibaldi in like six weeks.

Jeff: it's been a long time. Garibaldi. Gary, Gary, okay. Have you ever realized that everything's chill on Babylon five until Sheridan and Garibaldi were around? Well, so is Captain Lockley, who has styled the Sheridan Garibaldi effect after the Pauly effect, which I looked it up. It's a real thing. All the things go wrong when certain people are around, and with the two of them away, everyone's breathing a little bit easier on the station.

That is, until Garibaldi shows up. He's here to question High Dollar Projects to see if Hampton Edgar's Garibaldi Industries should continue funding them. He meets with a Dr. Bryson. No, not the one from the Leviathan DLC in Mass Effect 3, but a modern day Indiana Jones that has made the find of a lifetime.

A shiny bowling ball! It's even cooler than a motif golden jackal. He studies it on the station and finds life inside of it. Or at least the essence of life, the, the spirit of life, or if you would the soul. And that's the one we're going to go with because an actual soul hunter shows up, you know, the mystical and mysterious soul hunters that we've never actually seen before.

Like seriously, this is the first time. Also, I recently learned that I have a very welcome hole in my mind from around June of 2022. Yeah. Oh,

Brent: I understood that reference.

Jeff: it's a, it's a couple of references in that one. All right.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: soul hunter in a very elusive manner explains that the sphere doesn't just contain a soul. It contains all the souls of a long dead civilization. And he's worried that now that they're out, they're going to be really mad and coming for some vengeance.

And he's explaining this to Lockley, you know, and then a big energy kind of surge thing. They launched themselves at this elusive soul hunter, but Lockley being a true hero jumps in front of it takes the brunt of the blow, knocking her out and flatlining her. She finds herself inside the soul sphere looking at a beautiful Vista and standing next to Dr.

Franklin, or more accurately, one of the Raglins who explains the soul hunters are, or more accurately, one of the Ralgans who explains the soul hunters totally messed up. They weren't dying. No, they were evolving. And they screwed everything up. A whole bunch more Soul Hunters show up, and they are demanding the sphere, or they'll come get it themselves, and that apparently will be bad.

The Ralgen Souls, though, aren't gonna stand for this. They get Bryson to take him down to the fusion reactor, and they're gonna blow the whole thing up. Our Soul Hunter friend sacrifices himself, much like the Bartlett pair before canning, convincing the Souls that he and his people are truly sorry for what happened.

End. A truly selfless act, especially for one so young at just 4, 000 years old. Another soul hunter comes on board to get the sphere. When Lockley honors the other's sacrifice, it says that this young person This boy has truly become the elusive man, which lets us get to the real heart of the episode, the booming service industry in Brown sector and the stifling impacts of the bureaucracy and regulation.

It'd be one thing. If this entrepreneur tried to hide the reality of his business with some fancy name, like suites, you know, like how a hotel or motel puts suite in its name, but the rooms are barely even qualifying as rooms. Yeah, no suites here, not even a deck. He calls it exactly what it is. It's a hollow brothel.

Zack and Lockley flexed the long arm of municipal regulations to try and shut this place down. But the law and those pesky rights that people have get in their way in the form of one of the smarmiest lawyers we've ever met. Inspired by Sheridan from last week. They end up just blowing the brothel up, you know, apparently to save the station from some runaway souls or something, either way, general immunity saves their bacon.

Lockley celebrates being on the winning side of serendipity. Brent, how did you enjoy your trip down a river of souls? Okay.

Brent: I got to tell you, I was very much bracing myself for this film because the, what I've heard, and I've seen this from so many different commenters in the beginning is the best movie, the best of the movies. And then everything kind of trails off from there. And it seems like the further we get away from in the beginning, the worse they get. I saw some people say that they actually liked third space better than in the beginning, but that's as far as that went. So I was really bracing myself for just, and I know you have this hole in your memory, but I do remember soul hunters and I don't have a hole in my memory from that. And that was bad,

Jeff: Yeah, it really

Brent: you know, and I just, I was like, if I'm writing this as soul hunters, I just don't know.

What is going to happen. So I say that just to set this up and say, my expectation for this film was low. Jeff, I kind of enjoyed this movie.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I did. I had a lot of fun with it. It was cheesy. It was campy. Martin Sheen is a way better actor than what he put on tape in this particular episode or movie. Like he was awful.

Jeff: Yeah, oh, yeah,

Brent: on our Patreon page. When I uploaded the full version of the Brent watches for river of souls, I usually put these like quippy little taglines in the, in the comment box. Like I'm not, I'm not doing a full like show note thing for it. Right. Just a quippy little, whatever. And mine said something to the effect this week was, wow, apparently Babylon five has now taken two really good actors and gave them the worst performances of their career. Yes, that is a Michael York Avalon reference for those out there wondering because you're not trying to drag old stuff up. But there it is. And I like to poke the bear. So yeah, like Martin Sheen's performance was awful. The makeup was awful. Like, I mean, I've never seen a soul hunter on Botox before. But that's what Martin Sheen was like, it was just, but I loved Ian McShane.

I loved his character and modern day, Indiana Jones. Okay. Maybe future day, Indiana Jones, Jeff, I'm trying to correct you on that.

Jeff: that's a rush reference

Brent: Oh yeah, there you go. Um,

Jeff: references peppered in through that recap

Brent: uh, a lot of rush references.

Jeff: Uh, mostly, uh mass effect,

Brent: Oh yeah. All of those would just go over my head. So,

Jeff: Oh,

Brent: is like, I've loved Lockley in this episode.

I loved like this is probably the best Lockley episode that we've had and it came as a movie set what six months after the close of objects at rest or something like that, right? Um, I loved Garibaldi. I loved seeing your you know what I loved. They found a reason to bring Garibaldi back to the station.

That had nothing to do with Sheridan and DeLynn, had nothing to do with his role as a former security guy, had not, he is there in his full capacity as the leader, as the CEO of Hampton, whatever the name is, you know, uh, industries and he's, and it's a real legit reason why he would be there. I, I, Garibaldi was on his game with, with, uh, Ian McShane and it just, it felt like old Garibaldi to me in so many ways.

Like I just, there were, there were times where I loved it when we went to Quark's bar. In the middle of this episode, don't buzz. You already called yourself on that one. I'm like, this is so ridiculous. And Jeff, there was an episode. Oh, it was gray 17. Wasn't it where it was, we were, Oh, we started talking about this on the YouTube thing, like it was so bad.

I think I just had so much fun with it. You know what I

Jeff: except grace grace 17 had it was a good episode With some really bad in

Brent: Yeah, yeah. But it was like okay. Like for whatever reason, I was okay with it all. And here's the thing, I say it so bad, I really don't know that it really was that bad. You know? But I just found myself enjoying it. I think I enjoyed this movie more than I did Third Space. Because you know what this movie didn't have in it for me?

I didn't get to minute 45 or 50 and be like, Oh God, just get to it. And they had 20 more minutes of dragging it out. Like I never felt that in this particular film, you know? Um, and I think I might've actually liked third space more than in the beginning. Although in the beginning was really good. I did enjoy that one.

Um, so again, this, this felt like an episode of TV to me. It did not feel like a movie, you know, third space felt like a two parter episode in the beginning kind of had that movie fill this one. Just, you know, good episode of TV that, yeah, I don't know. Like I was fine if this here's the thing. If this had actually been an episode or a two part episode in the run of the show. I might be a little more, but like for just a one off, sure. Why not? Like it's fine. I, the, the, I almost finish it up with this. The pluses outweighed the negatives to me. And I, I, I just enjoyed this episode or this movie more than I feel like I should have Jeff. How about you?

Jeff: Talk about this being a one off episode I'm gonna compare this one to Grail. Grail was one with a kind of interesting but flimsy storyline and David Warner Right. And he killed it. It was amazing. Slip this into that same space, kind of flimsy storyline, Martin Sheen. Right. And then how great would that have been?

Well, probably better than this. A couple of things you said, though, I want to read my exact note. It's another almost single episode story stretched to 90 minutes. This, so you talked about third space having that 30 minute hole in it of just, This was such a slow. Plotting episode that just kind of, it's like, it just wouldn't get to the point.

It, it wasn't until minute 41 that soul hunter even showed up. I almost a halfway mark was just this built into some of the bill. So here's the thing. Like I'm with you. I thought this was a great and interesting idea for an episode for an episode. Like I, I'm going to hammer this through the, through our entire conversation.

This was not a movie. Should not have been a movie. The, the biggest thing this thing has going against it is it was twice, at least twice as long as it needed to be. And because it was so long, it just brought up like so many ideas and cool things and just kind of let them hang. Like, we'll talk about messages later, but point of this movie was what makes you, And like, they asked that question early on, right?

Ian McShane, Dr. Bryson, he's like, If I have this, and you don't have your memories, does that mean I own you because I have your memories? And then we never touch on it again. And I'm like, that was so fascinating! That would have been so great! A lot of other really cool ideas in this one. This, yeah, this, not a fan of this episode overall.

That said, This is a great Lockley episode. Wild competence throughout with Bryson problem solving. Uh, she played against the attorney dude, you know, and beat him at his own game. Like she was, she solved the problem of like, you know, Hey, are they,

Brent: can I comment on that just for a second? The way that Lockley resolved the whole issue with the lawyer felt very, very much in the vein of what we would have seen Sheridan and Sinclair do.

Jeff: Yes,

Brent: You know what I mean? Like Sinclair handled stuff in a, in a different way than Sheridan did. Lockley handle stuff in a different way than either of those two guys.

But there are times when the captain gets real wily and pulls a, pulls a sneaky fast one that you're just like, Oh, and it was, she was right there in that vein of those three people that I don't think we've really ever seen from anybody else, you know, right now as somebody on their keywords on, yeah, but what about that time to lend it?

And I'll, okay. Maybe.

Jeff: Dylan doesn't command Babylon five. She's not the, so there's that also Lockley had a twisty straw, twisty, bendy, fun straw and eight disgusting looking food. And like when I, I don't know, there's so many aspects of this that were great Lockley episodes. I'm not going to talk about hollow Lockley. I think that's apparent in and of itself, all the things.

Uh, but that included great Lockley episode

Brent: Yeah, honestly, I could have done without the Lockley, the hollow Lockley thing, like sure fun eye candy for a 20 something or 17 year old kid back in the nineties or whatever. But in that particular plot point right there, Jeff, I'm sorry, am I walking on you?

Jeff: No, I've said what I need to say.

Brent: That particular plot point and

felt so lifted right out of deep space nine. If you remember the episode where Quark was trying to capture the video of, uh, uh, Kira.

Jeff: Yeah. The very first time Jeffrey Combs was in a Star Trek episode in Star Trek, actually.

Brent: that's true. That is true. Um, and I can picture the makeup he had on for that one. Uh, yeah, it was like, it was that same plot, except he actually like got it and when he saw it and was using it, I don't know. So I was like, yeah, okay. I would have been more happy if she had, if she had, uh, either, either it didn't work or she just tore some stuff up because of it.

Like go to town, baby. You're like, do it.

Jeff: I, and to add to that, literally it showed her in that. And she looked at it. It was like, Oh, and Garibaldi was like, yeah. Apparently it's popular with the ladies. Like that's great being totally Garibaldi, just kind of egging her on. But as soon as that was done, it changed back into her earth force uniform and walked off to do that.

So why did, why did it have to be that? You know, I think that that story was fine with just hollow, hollow people going around. It didn't, you didn't have to pull a Lockley in and make it weird

Brent: one.

Jeff: talking about the hollow brothel. Uh, well, it's not a reference necessarily. If it's just a character. Did you recognize the proprietor of the hollow brothel?

He

Brent: but I wasn't able to play some. Who is he? No, he's not.

Jeff: home guy. Yeah.

Brent: Okay. All right.

Jeff: Yeah. Everything, everything in this movie orbits around deep space nine. Like everything, but I want to, I want to just, I, I have a question, two questions on here that one says. Is this the episode that we talk and have the conversation about AI art and deepfake porn? And the other question I have on here is, do we have the conversation about sex work and if it's something that should be shut down or something that should be regulated? Or do we just acknowledge those are things this episode brought up and move on?

Brent: Well, I think it's fine to give our personal opinions on the whole situation. here's mine. And I'm speaking from my seat as, as, uh, someone from the deep South and a person of faith and all this sort of stuff. I'm going to answer the second one first about sex work. Consenting adults are consenting adults and they should be able to do what they want.

I would be more for it being regulated for safety purposes and taxing. I mean, look what happens when you legalize weed, start taxing it. And all of a sudden you get rid of income tax, you know,

Jeff: of revenue.

Brent: regulate it, make it safe. And, and consenting adults be consenting adults. Don't make it, you know, let it be, uh, sorry if that offends anybody's senses of morality out there.

I'm not here to legislate or, uh, pound my morality into somebody else, you know,

Jeff: today. Not today, at

Brent: not today, at least. No, no. Um, as far as the AI and the, the deep fake, uh, imagery. Deepfake imagery is incredibly dangerous and should be outlawed. If you're being deepfaked and it's not your own, if it's not your permission, uh, think about how many people have gone to jail based on video evidence of themselves doing something.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: If you now telling me that it's possible to deepfake that in such a way that I can't tell the difference, whether or not that's me or not, I've heard deepfake voices as well. Voice generators that change people's voices. You're going to do all of that. And it's super scary that that's not me. And, and by the way, I now have the greatest defense in the world.

That's not me. I must be deep fake. They have that technology. All I gotta do is cast a shadow of a doubt, right? Like a reason, not shadow of doubt, reasonable doubt.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: It's not me. Mm. Um, so yeah, I, I don't like that as far as AI art, that's so hard. Um, I'm going to, I'm going to, my opinion on that is I, I give it the Taylor Swift treatment.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: Are you familiar with what happened with Taylor Swift and her music?

Jeff: How? Yeah.

Brent: owning the rights and stuff like that.

Jeff: the biggest badass move. I think any recording artist has almost ever made and I don't like Taylor Swift. I'm not a fan this though. Incredible.

Brent: Yeah. Um, the short version of that, the rights for her music went up for sale. She wanted to purchase it. It got snaked away from her by somebody else that she doesn't even like. And so she went in and because all you, she owns the songwriting credit. Just not the recording credit. So she went in and literally re recorded.

Do you know how expensive it is to record an album? Literally from scratch re recorded all of her earlier albums. I think she did what like 10 of them or something like that before this happened. Like. Crazy. The amount of boyfriends that girl's been through just joking. Um, but she went in and so now you have, you have these music, this, the original recordings, and then you have this one that's set up as Taylor's version when you're out there going to, or when someone is out there going to pick up a Taylor Swift song, my would always encourage that person. Find the Taylor version and listen to that one. Don't listen to the other,

Jeff: hmm.

Brent: you know, I would hope when people go to put her music in their films and they call for the rights that they get the Taylor's version, not the original version, right?

Because I think it's right that we honor and we support the artists that are actually doing stuff. You want to use the AI thing fine, but at the same time, you should cognitively go do the art, get it from an actual artist. Who can actually make it even better than the AI, you know, so I like it's one of those I kind of gotta leave it up to the people, but I think they should get it from the artist

Jeff: I think the AI art one even with music is so complicated and hard Who's who's to say? I mean look start. No, never mind. It's gonna make a whole Star Trek thing I'm not gonna use up the last reference here, but Art there's no reason to believe art cannot be created by an artificial intelligence.

That is original Because like as a musician, here's the thing. I'm a musician. Well, I'm a drummer hanging out with musicians, but You My original work is the amalgamation of all my influences, right? So in a sense, I am an intelligence that has gone and pulled all of these other artists and their, their thing, pulled it together and created something that is now mine and unique, even though it's also all of theirs, that's what AI art.

Does right? So I don't know. It's weird, but I'll also say my personal view is if I'm going to buy an AI thing or a human thing by the human thing, like every time, but with the music, it's so I don't know. It's just complicated. There are a lot of recording artists. I think John legend is one of the big, big ones who, but basically sold the rights to their voice, not their music, but their voice.

And so now through YouTube, like they can, you can write a song through AI. Let me rephrase that. You can have AI generate a song and have John legend. I could be wrong. It might not be John legend, but. Have that actual artist's voice be the one that does it I think the key point through all of this and even the taylor swift thing is the artist is still involved Right, even though taylor's stuff got sold to someone she didn't like that's because of the original agreement And who actually got to make the sale decision and all the things there She was still involved in the whole thing was able to make choices around it where it crosses the line is when the person has no involvement.

No consent. Just here's this song. Here's this video. Here's this image of you and you weren't even a part of it. And I think that's where we get into the deep fakes and especially like porn that's created from deep fakes where there's an argument to be made that, hey, you know, I mean, like, We're not objectifying, like we're not going out and having a woman or a man and, and, you know, objectifying them as a person.

It's, it's not even real. And, you know, like now I don't have to look at this other person and whatever, I can victimlessly see what I want to see. The thing is, it's not, in my opinion, it's not victimless. Like, if I saw a thing out there using my likeness, which if it's, it's very unlikely, but like, I would lose my mind.

Um,

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: Imagine if it was one of your kids, right? Like, Oh my God. It's so I feelings there for

Brent: It, it, it is, it is such a violation of a personhood to use that, you know? Um, and you're, and you're right. A kid, even myself, my wife, my whatever, like, no, you're not gonna, you're not going to do that now. I mean, yeah. Uh,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Good point. Jeff. Good point. I agree.

Jeff: And on the sex work, couldn't agree with you more. Like, in my opinion, the, one of the primary problems with sex work is that today, because it all happens under the covers, as it were, uh, it's, it's, it's where so much human trafficking occurs, and where, and why so much of it exists, and so if you bring that more to the surface, it's regulated, it's taxed, things like that, not only does it make it more difficult for human trafficking to happen, but it also But also, you know, all the, all the health components around your sexuality then have a level of, you know, there's testing and there's stuff going on and regulation that happens.

So, um, I appreciated this film just for even introducing this, you know, as a thing. And, and I, and I, I kind of liked the idea Lockley coming in and being like, no, we got to shut this down. This isn't okay. And it was a little tricky legal stuff they were playing, but like they weren't, it's entertainment.

Like I have an entertainment license and this is just entertainment, it's all I'm, it's all I'm doing, what's wrong, I'm not breaking any rules here. If I were Zach, which would be awesome, like Zach's great, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't say anything about having a brothel. I would have only focused on those little suits that they had and hey, you know, do you, is it licensed, is it cleared, is it inspected, is it whatever.

Go the, right, go the OSHA route basically, you know, and hit them with that, but they brought up the question of, Is it okay to have a brothel on here? And it's like, that's a, that's a losing

Brent: But see, okay, but that's a great comment though. Jeff on particularly small town America, right? What is a communities? How far is a community allowed to go to shape the community that they want to have is a community allowed. Let's just say brothels are legal all, all across our, our great country here.

Let's just say they are right. Um, is it okay for a small town to go? We don't want that in our town. Or do they have to allow it?

Jeff: I think it's

Brent: do they get to legislate that sort of shaping of their community? And that's an interesting thought process, man.

Jeff: I think this is where I can play. I can play capitalist here and say, absolutely. They have a say in it. They don't like it. Don't patronize it. They're only in business because people are going there and giving them money. I'll never forget when I was growing up. Down in our ritzy or part of town. Um, they opened up a, uh, adult store.

I think back then we called them arcades, adult arcades, which is really confusing. Uh, growing up, I loved going to arcades, right? But they opened one up and a bunch of people went to protest it. And I think I was in middle school, maybe early high school. And I remember just wondering, I'm like, if people don't want it to be there, why don't they just don't shop there?

Right? Like we see all the restaurants in our towns open up. And go away, right? You know, I mean, I think every town, every bigger town has that one building that like has a new owner every three months, like nothing can survive in that one building. No one goes there. It dies on its own. Why do we have to go in and let no, we have to go in and legislate if people are being harmed or property is being destroyed. If you're regulating brothels, then is anyone getting harmed? I don't think so. Another point. So over here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, we have a thriving cannabis industry, billions, billions of dollars and dollars in tax revenue coming in. But each city has the opportunity to say not in my town. And so like just where I am in my city, I don't know. There's probably like 20 different dispensaries you can go to directly across the river and kind of our Sister city across the river can't sell them. It's not possible. But you know what they just come over here.

Brent: We have that in Kentucky where you have dry counties and wet counties

Jeff: Mmm. Yeah

Brent: alcohol. Yeah, same thing. Right. And while I tell you what you set up a store right along that border money.

Jeff: gonna be doing just fine.

Brent: So yeah, yeah, there's all that. I never, I actually didn't think about this, bringing those kinds of questions up, but I think that that's a very interesting, interesting idea.

Here's the thing though. What did you think about how. The I'm going to call him Quark. I don't even know what his name was. I called him Quark. How did Quark handle that? I thought he did it exactly like he should have until he got his lawyer involved and then that's just, it's a money grab. He was only looking for a settlement.

He never actually wanted to do it. It just wanted the money. Like, as long as like, dude, like, I get it. That's what you are, but that's what you do. But

Jeff: I thought he was he was perfect And the lawyer was fine, you know, I mean he was an archetype He was supposed to be disgusting and all those things. He reminded me, I don't know if you ever saw it's on Netflix, but there's a show, um, called louder milk. That does like a three season thing. And, um, there's an, uh, alcoholics anonymous group.

They call it sober friends, you know, for whatever, but it's a story of the, the people, part of this group. And there's one guy who was an attorney who was this guy basically of like, Oh, you have this one little tiny complaint. Well, I'm going to ramp it all the way up here and freak out and ask for all this extra stuff.

And. This guy was a good, uh, like base baseline for that. So yeah, he was ridiculous and exactly what he was supposed to be. I thought of that whole dynamic in terms of in third space where we had Lita being the, the psych psych or person for the two brothers. You know, we're like, do you cheat on my wife?

Which I did. I did not enjoy that scene very much. You thought it was great.

Brent: I thought it was funny. I, I did.

Jeff: I feel like this was good. It didn't serve the story that much. Like, you know, it just added some time or whatever. It made that thermal grenade that Lockley through have a little more weight to it.

Brent: whole hollow brothel thing. Yeah, it, it was, it was, Hey, we need 20 minutes of B story.

Jeff: We need 20 minutes of B story and we need a mechanism for these souls to be seen. I'm at a hologram. How are we going to get holograms in here?

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: Sex work. That's how

Brent: There you go.

Jeff: you talked about Ian McShane, Ian McShane, Dr. Bryson. Dude, he was so good

Brent: liked him in this one. I really did. I liked him a whole lot. Um, he, he was, And this was before Ian McShane got really big, I think.

Jeff: I think, well, to be fair, I didn't know who he was until people on our discord were like, how did you not recognize Ian McShane? I'm like, I don't, I still don't know who he is, but he's a great actor. He's great.

Brent: Dude. He's, he's in, go look up some of the stuff, but his, his work in Deadwood. So

Jeff: what it was pointing. I've never seen Deadwood.

Brent: So good. You know, and he, he's one of those, like you will, you recognize him from lots of other things he's been in and you just go, Oh, and then you see him in dead when you're like, Oh, he's a great actor.

He's just. He's, he's consistently gotten good work or, and been good at what he does. And, you know, managed to land a series at one point.

Jeff: He made a huge mistake though, in the beginning of this whole thing. I mean, and he should have known this because I'm going to imagine Indiana Jones is canonically in Babylon 5. But when he took that sphere, where was the bag of sand, man? That's why everything went

Brent: I was waiting for, I had that same thought expect like a big ball, Boulder ball to come rolling down behind him.

Jeff: Totally, but it was, I think it was interesting to me with that sphere, the bowling ball thing was, I was always under the impression with the souls that the soul hunters took that they, because yes, I have a hole in my mind, but I also remember a couple of things. But he had like those spheres like the little spheres and they were like the people what it's always thought I always pictured them as like individual things And when they first busted into the chamber, that's what it looked like.

It was lining the walls were just those

Brent: It was the matrix. They were plugged into matrix is what that looked like. Yeah.

Jeff: I think that's one of my questions is like it's interesting. They put this whole civilization into one sphere, but Martin sheen Said that we put them in these whisper chambers so they can talk to each other. They can communicate You

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: And then Lockley went on and on about how inhumane, how cruel that is.

I,

Brent: hmm. Mm

Jeff: don't know that I agree with her. I just think it's interesting, the idea that, I feel like one of the story beats they really tried to hit on this, was one we've had in every movie so far, and that's our arrogance and hubris, and the soul hunters are so arrogant they just think they're doing the right thing. I don't know. But it turns out we're so cool.

Are you, I mean, yeah, you want to let the souls go wherever they need to go. It's the natural order of things or whatever, but it's not like there's locking them away and they're living in solitary. They, they can talk to each other, you know, or whatever. And is that

Brent: in the, in the episode, they were also talking to the soul hunter guy. We'll pause just for a moment. It's okay.

Jeff's on dad, dude.

Yeah. So anyway, I'll just vamp here and fill in time. I don't know what Jeff's talking about. He's completely wrong. He is awful and has no idea about anything. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yeah. There's, there's a lot going on here. I want to, I think just about to get into the main messages that I pulled out of this film.

So I'm, I'm curious to see where this conversation is about to go. So, Oh, Hey,

Jeff: was I saying?

Brent: you were talking about Lockley and how she wasn't right that they were just being tortured souls. Mm

Jeff: So the thing started off with. Bryson going after Garibaldi, you know, and who are you really, right? Are you what I see or are you what's inside? Well, the people die or are plucked at evolution and put into these bowling balls or these, whatever

Brent: hmm. Mm

Jeff: And then they're left in these whisper chambers and Lockley's like.

They, they, they don't get to do anything. Uh, they can't, they're unable to touch or be touched. And I was just struck during that whole conversation. I was just like, isn't our being more than that though? Aren't we more than what we do? Aren't we more than just being able to touch other people? I mean, as a Jeff as social justice warrior, her, I have to say like her argument was very ableist.

And like there are humans here today that cannot touch or be touched. Are they not, you know, living a good life according to captain Lockley here? Like,

Brent: Yeah, I gotta be honest. I was not. I was not fully understanding why they were being tortured. Just that they were being tortured, you know, or and by torture, I use that in a very loose sense of the word, like that their existence felt like torture, like it almost at some point seemed like they were in pain.

Or something of that nature. But I still think that this film, while this, while this film really sought to like fill in a lot of the soul hunter stuff, it's still left a lot to be desired in a lot of questions out there. It didn't really answer a ton. So it was, that was one of those things that I think, like, I just sort of accepted what the show was saying and moved on and didn't think a ton about.

But I will tell you just to, to go into this, cause you're talking They were about to evolve

Jeff: Yes.

Brent: and we took the whole thing, the way that Lockley described that in the way that they were describing that, talking about this evolving into an energy, leaving the physical body behind and becoming more than, I got to tell you, Jeff, as, as a person of faith, that's what I think happens when you die.

Jeff: It's the

Brent: now, and it doesn't require waiting millions of years for the whole society to just sort of go together. That sounds like some cult stuff to me, you know,

Jeff: Put on your Nikes and drink some Kool Aid.

Brent: But like the way that you described that right now is kind of where I think things happen when you die. Like you call it evolution.

I just call it the soul leaving the body, going to the next plane. I don't know that that's evolution. You know, maybe it is, maybe not. I don't, I don't, I don't know, but it like, it didn't seem all that bad, you know, and it's just, you ever watch the show ghosts

Jeff: A

Brent: on CBS or BBC, you ever watch it, if you've not watched it, you should watch it.

It's so funny. It's so, it's so good. It's so good. Uh, Ooh, that should be a watch video anyway. Um, The whole bit of that is, is there, most people, when they die, their soul goes beyond, or as they say, get sucked off. Cause, um, it's only a few who are left behind, who are tethered. And while certainly they're not tortured, it's not like the greatest existence ever either, you know?

So there to go to the tortured world just as a little. Little overarching. I want to ask you about the intent of the soul hunters themselves. Like you're absolutely right. Why are they able to contain the entire culture into this one bowling ball? Like, cause it just, I thought it would just be these orbs, right?

Like regardless, but what about the soul hunters in general coming and grabbing their essence the moment before death, they say,

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: and then preserving that essence. And the question that I have to have is, okay. Okay. To what end? Like why?

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: And I, I still don't understand the why like. Wasn't it better to keep them here?

Maybe. Why? What are we doing with it? Apparently nothing.

Jeff: we got to see the first ones in action, right? You know, during the battle of Korea six and stuff. And what we know is they became these massive civilizations of culture and technology and all this stuff. If during the shadow conflict, the shadow of Orlon conflict, the soul hunters showed up and they're like, Hey, listen.

So we went into a whisper chamber with the greatest. Battle strategists of all time, 10, 15, 100, 000, whatever year's worth of them. And we, we gathered the best thing. And here's what we think. If there was a thing going on and they created poetry or art or architecture, that was just this beautiful, then it makes complete sense.

Not only does your essence live on, but we're going to, we're going to make it part of something bigger and transcend time itself.

Brent: it's going to be able to help the galaxy continue because that, and by the way, that's why we're getting the leaders and the artists and the, these people, we want the best of the best. So that like, that makes sense to me.

Jeff: Exactly instead of having a couple of first ones civilizations. You have a first ones galaxy Like that's where real unity comes. We can create real art and culture and technology across all races Everything that would be amazing. But instead apparently they sit in these caves with a soul hunter who kind of listens to them You And, and I think

Brent: I, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Jeff: I'll say, and I think using these Rogans and the big bowling ball is not a great example because that's not what they do with it.

The other ones were actually dying and they put them in orbit in a thing. These guys weren't like, it's, it's, it's the exception and they're trying to describe their standard by the exception and I just don't buy it.

Brent: Yeah, it's an interesting thing because even the whole idea of soul hunter forces, the acknowledgement of an essence of a soul, of a spirit, of a call it, whatever you want. Let's face it. It's really the same thing.

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: You know what I mean? Oh no, it's not. It's it's the same thing. Like whatever you call it.

Fine. Um, And I got to tell you what I didn't like. And this really was like, yeah, soul hunters. He's 4, 000 years young and all these and soldiers just live for. Okay. So are they stealing life energy from these guys? Is that why they do it? Because now we're getting into tangled and mother Grothal from Rapunzel's story and Disney.

Like, like what, what's going on here? Guys. You know,

Jeff: And if they're, and if they're that old, do they have souls of great Vorlons of great Lorien's like,

Brent: not because that one soul hunter dude was nuts,

Jeff: yeah,

Brent: you know,

Jeff: it.

Brent: which by the way, how do you, what if, what if the reason why he was nuts was because he captured a soul that was nuts

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: it like, and when you do that, it incorporates into you, into your thing. And maybe he's looking for Dukat or some of these other folks out there trying to purge that from his soul.

Or whatever, you know, but you know what it reminds me of if, if they were to do it that way now here, here, you and I are talking about if they did it a different way than what they actually did in the show, then what JMS actually wrote in the show, but it kind of what you're talking about reminds me of what I understand the.

Buddhist or Hindu as one, basically, it's the idea. Like when you die, your spirit, your soul, your essence, your, whatever kind of goes and joins the big bubble of souls up there. And like, it's, it's like you're adding to the, you're, you're rejoining the collective, you're adding back in becoming like just this great, I don't know, aluminum foil ball of souls of essence, you know what I mean?

Um, and it just makes you, or, Oh, should I burn it? No, I'm not going to,

Jeff: I don't have it anymore. I'm going to say

Brent: okay. Or, or it's, it's like in DS nine, the changelings coming home and adding back to the great lake.

Jeff: great link.

Brent: That's what I meant. That's what I said.

Jeff: That's what I heard. Totally

Brent: Yeah. Right. Uh, but you know, something of that nature with the soul hunters, it just. You know, I don't know

Jeff: And also that points to Minbari, that's Minbari religion. We are all the universe. We're all, you know, manifestations of the universe trying to figure it out. And yeah, that lines up with that as

Brent: it would, it would line up to go back to the age thing though. Like I, I was really put off by the way Martin Sheen acted soul hunter, particularly when we first saw him on, on screen. By the time we got to the end of the film, he was much more loose. He was much more whatever. And I didn't know. If that was something that was done on purpose or if that was something that he got into the character and he just stopped trying to be weird and became a little bit more normal from what I have read in the comments, and I don't usually pull these in, but it just made a lot of sense to me.

And I don't know if you knew this or not, Jeff, that was a deliberate choice that they made of soul hunter doesn't know English. And so him coming in, he was still kind of learning how to speak the language a little bit, but they learn really, really fast. So he got more fluid with it as, as time in the film went on. And I was like, yeah, because it really made Martin Sheen's performance. Look awful to me. Like it, it, it was like, how is this the guy

Jeff: When he walked out on screen, I said, like, I had no idea who he was or anything. I made the comment, Oh, look, they got a dime store Martin Sheen. And then as he talked more, I'm like, Oh my God, it actually is Martin Sheen. What is he doing? Like, this is so bad. It's horrible. And like in the timeline of things, he was either filming the West Wing at the same time or about to film the West Wing, which is.

Peak Martin Sheen like in in the story of West Wing the the production of it President Bartlett was just supposed to be kind of a over here character and martin sheen brought so much to it he became the character and the point of the show, you know, and it's just Incredible didn't see that here at all.

I I had that thought when I watched it the second time for notes Was oh, okay. So he's getting comfortable Learning the language figuring out the culture here on the ship a little on the station a little bit I get it, but they never said anything about that They just had him act weird and then act differently at different points And i'm just like it That introduction of him honestly ruined him for the whole rest of the

Brent: Well, and, and not just the introduction, but the kind of the way we said goodbye to him, like him at the end, even when he was more fluid with English, like the, that big monologue he had at the end, that one sided monologue.

Jeff: Mm

Brent: Where he was just, it was so long and had no energy and was, my note was, this is a snooze fest.

Jeff: Yeah

Brent: my word. Just, and he gets sucked into the thing and his whole solution to them. Correct me if I'm wrong is yeah, I'm going to go in here. And what's basically going to happen is, is, is we're going to let you guys go, but it's like, we'll do like a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time for whatever reason, probably not to like flood whatever, or because who's to say they're going to continue to release a few at a time.

Yeah. Now take that same words, take that same

Jeff: And why it was the dumbest thing ever like I couldn't agree more that monologue was long and boring but had Amazing words in it. We assumed is this the price of our arrogance? Oh, it was great And then he tells him Oh,

Brent: Saying those words. Oh, my God.

Jeff: we'd be in tears on the phone. Oh my God. You're right. It's so instead it's like, just finished.

Just get to the end. Blow up the reactor at this point. I don't even care. Just make it stop. But then he kept going and that whole thing. Hey, well, you know, I mean, in time, eventually, you know, we'll kind of get you out a little bit. What? Don't even say that. Don't just be like, Hey, look, we screwed up. I'm so sorry.

I'm going to come and hang out with you to show you that we've learned and we're better. And then they're done. Like don't make up a stupid thing. That's fake. And what actually, if I was one of these Rogans and they said, Hey, eventually over time, sort of, maybe. We'll find some way to let some of you out.

That's when I would blow up the reactor. I'd be like, you're not taking me seriously. You suck. I do love though, the end of that, the end of the whole thing. When other Soul Hunters shows up with even worse makeup than Martin Sheen's. And Lockley's like, oh my god, this is such a badass moment for her. She's like, you will honor his sacrifice.

Or the Hunters will become the hunted. Yes! You tell him! So good!

Brent: So, I have a question, and I need to pull on your oh one who was. I'm pretty sure in this film that Soul Hunter dude, Martin Sheen, Soul Hunter, said that the Minbari stopped them from getting Dukat's soul. But I thought the whole thing in Soul Hunter was they got Dukat's soul, and Dillon was like, give it back! Give it back! Am I misremembering that?

Jeff: You are, if I remember correctly, and it's a thing I thought is either in the beginning or at some point I thought they were actually going to show it, but if I remember right, like The minbari physically blocked him like they saw the soul hunter coming and like no you do not touch ducat So he wasn't and then ducat died and the soul left him and so like basically he watched the soul escape and he couldn't Get it and that's what drove him to be murder soul hunter Maybe that's what I thought we were going to see in this actually was I was hoping we'd see

Brent: I really wanted that soul hunter back. I really did. Like, actually, I wanted more than one soul hunter. I wanted a bunch of soul hunters.

Jeff: I wanted none

Brent: Well,

Jeff: got soul hunters, I wanted more I wanted more and I wanted stuff that made more sense about them I I to your earlier point We have an understanding of the timeline of Babylon five with the ancient ones the first ones and you know Kind of the cycle of everything these guys don't fit into that in any way.

It's almost like the The Vendrisi, right? So you got these Vendrisi those things the the parasites that would you know, we're friendly parasites that had Millennia of knowledge saved in them. How does that? And I'll say it again, if we're having this existential moment of galactic blow up or not, the battle of Koreana six, where are the Vendrisi with all this knowledge?

Where are the soul hunters with all these essences and spirits and souls? Where are these people that have all the answers? If they're not there, what's the point of them even being around? Or is that, Ooh. Like, you can be a hermit and a mystic up on the top of the mountain, but if you're not actually down in the stuff, does it matter that you're even doing that? I'm digging, I am digging hard for some meaning here.

Brent: speaking of meaning, Jeff, I think we're at that spot. Unless you have something else. I really think we're at that spot where we turn the corner and we do the analytical thing. We do that. The thing we do with Star Trek podcasters, where we overanalyze everything and try to put meanings to it, that really may not even be there in the first place, but we're going to pull them out anyway.

Jeff, that's going to fall to you this week. What kind of sci fi messages did you pull out of river of souls?

Jeff: I pulled out so many of them, so many, but little tiny nuggets of so many of them. I'll just, I'll start with the end here and that there was not an overarching message in here other than asking that great question I said earlier, what makes you, you? But I think that's, that's a thing that you could sit and meditate on for generations and not, not really figure out.

It's a great, it's a great thing to ponder. But in this in this film, we got the theme that we've gotten through every through in the beginning third space Is this the price of our arrogance? he asked we get that just Just that confidence that hubris that you know causes you to make blind mistakes I what I liked about this one though is they had that idea that They knew what was best no matter what they felt that they were doing something benevolent But what they were doing is causing untold suffering, at least, at least for their organs.

It really made me consider, we look at holding up a mirror to society as one of our questions in doing the white star rating. And it made me think about when we interject ourselves, either personally or nationally, politically or whatever, into other people's or other culture's business. Like we go in, you can look at so many points in history.

where someone, a colonizer, a missionary, as someone went into some other culture because they knew what was best for this other culture. And here we are where, for example, the single single most celebrated holiday in the entire world is not Christmas, but independence from the British, more countries celebrate that than any other holiday.

Okay. Because they knew it was best for everybody. This even got reflected in the hollow brothel story. When Zach was talking about the deep fake thing, did these people ever consent to this, or are you just grabbing it? Because you think, you know, what's best in what people really need. That was the biggest thing I got out of this.

Some other ones that I got one line is.

Brent: hold on, Jeff. Hold on, Jeff. That, that is, that is one of the biggest pieces, I think, to this whole. This whole, uh, movie, film, extended episode, whatever we want to call it. And that is a message. That is something that I see talked about time and time again in sci fi it's why sci fi messages work because you can, you can analyze the culture of another and ask the question, is it morally good, morally right, or do we have the right to apply our morals to that culture?

You know, in this case, If we take the show for what it says happened, even though it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. They stopped a culture that was about to collectively evolve because they thought they were about to die. And they were just trying to help. And instead they became the villains. Right?

Didn't even know that they were the villains.

Jeff: No, they thought that to the moment of that sphere being stolen. They thought they were heroes

Brent: Yeah. And like, give us the soul, give us the sphere back. Why? Because we're preserving that thing. Okay. Let's, what about zoos? Don't we do this whole thing where we grab animals and we're keeping them in here, but we're going to, they're healthy and they're getting all the medical care they need and this, that, and the other, and we're helping them.

And if somebody tries to come steal an animal from a zoo, you know, some stuff's going to go down, you know, that I think is an extreme example because I, I'm a fan of zoos. I think they're generally good. For society and, and for the animals in, in general. Now I'm not a behind the scenes person, but whatever, but I, I love that as, as a question mark.

And this did to me, the good sci fi work of it showed you both sides. It did. I wish it would have discussed it a little bit more, but it did show you both sides. It discussed both sides of it and it didn't give you an answer as to what was right or wrong. It's just as you now get to chew, chew on that as a, as a viewer, as a person, as a human,

Jeff: Well, I think it did give you a bit of an answer when Martin Sheen sacrificed himself.

Brent: I don't think he was right about that though.

Jeff: Right, so it that begs the other question of and we've talked about this in other episodes Hey, so we screwed up and we want to make right on it How how do you do that Do that. Not like this, right? Not, not the way he did it.

And we can look at so many examples, even in real life, we, we've talked about slavery and reparations. You can look at the decolonization movement that's happening in today's world. It's like those. All of those are great sentiments. Are they really going to fix the thing though? You know, like, or, or has the damage.

Um, whole other conversation, but I, I think the winning of it, Martin Sheen did in here was not helpful. Um, other than the story told us it was,

Brent: Yeah, well, here's, here's the other thing. So Martin Sheen has become enlightened to the crap that his people have been doing. So he's going to be the one who goes and dies and is not an influence with his people now. Like,

Jeff: that, and that ties directly into one of the other messages I got out of this one was he said a thing to Lockley of, I wish they, me and the other soul hunters, I wish they could talk to you like I have gotten to know you. He saw the error of their ways because he. Talked to someone like, I think we've said that's the sci fi message when you communicate, when you find connection,

Brent: Jeff, stop. You and I have really made this thing to turn this corner from being Star Trek to sci fi that's the Star Trek message that is quintessential. The Star Trek is the, we got to talk it out. We learn from each other. We get on the same, you know, we, we embrace our differences and we talk it out.

We don't fight it out. That's, that's quintessentially the Star Trek side, my friends.

Jeff: Trek is the, is the Paragon of that message, but it shows up in so, so many different

Brent: many, you know why? Because it's right.

Jeff: Yeah, it's the thing to do. And to your point, then he goes and dies before he talks to any of the other soul hunters.

Brent: And he takes all that with him.

Jeff: Yeah. It's like, what? He, there was a, there was a line that I thought was interesting, um, that they did. Well, they may, they did kind of some stuff with, but they didn't make the point, but he says there is strength enough in one soul to change the universe.

Imagine their strength if they all came together.

Brent: can all focus on the same goal, that was the message I pulled out of this whole thing.

Jeff: Because that's exactly what the Rahlgans did. They focused on this one thing. They almost destroyed a station. They changed the heart and soul of a soul hunter. They did all these different amazing things because even split, they became singularly focused on a thing. But my favorite part of that whole thing though, is the first part.

There is strength enough in one soul to change the universe. Yes, this movie took us down the path of them coming together and being focused. And I believe that is the ultimate goal of life is for us to come together in a singular. Form and cause kind of, you're saying, Oh, the becoming the universe as, as it was.

And I get super woo, woo on my, my visions around that. I won't do that here, but I think that's the ultimate goal. But for a sci fi message to know that one single soul can change the universe and we can look back and look at so many instances. Of that being true, whether it's in our lives and reality in Star Trek in Babylon five in Stargate, all the different properties shooting in the alien franchise, right?

One single soul. Look what David did. Like, I mean, it's just, I mean, there's so much that it can do. And I found that to me to be the most, like, and hopeful message in, in the whole thing. Yeah.

Brent: if we can flip this on the other side, though, one, so what did one soul hunter do when he came to Babylon five, anytime, anytime,

Jeff: Which time?

Brent: anytime,

Jeff: Well, yeah. So the first time he, both times they almost like destroyed the station.

Brent: Okay. There's just, there's enough strength in just one soul to change the universe. What happened when all the soul hunters collectively came together and focus their energy on getting that big bowling ball back?

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: It's the same thing just on the other side, right? There's one, there's enough energy in one who can really mess some stuff up.

Imagine what happens if the whole group comes together. Whoa. And that was the threat at one point. Like,

Jeff: hmm. Yeah. We will

Brent: you out if you don't give us the bowling ball back.

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: And so Brent, I think with all of that, because it's, there's little pieces and threads and like salt and pepper and shotgun and stuff all through this. But there is that through line that. Like together we can do more. We can be powerful. And when we don't decide what's best for others, things, things go a lot better.

I, I really want to rate this very, very high on the white stars, but I think it was very broken in how it gave, in fact, part of our rating is how Babylon five was the delivery of the message. And Brent, this wasn't necessarily very good. Babylon five.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: with that, I'm going to give this one three and a half white stars.

Brent: That's a lot more than I think

Jeff: Really?

Brent: that's a lot more than I feel like it should have gotten to be honest with you. Yeah,

Jeff: I feel like the messages are super strong. It's just their delivery was, and

Brent: Okay. All right. Three and a half. That's where he goes.

Jeff: that makes me curious. Like that's where I thought the messages were. Where do you think this one brings you get to rank? This movie we're creating the absolute 100 percent definitive immutable ranking of the Babylon five movies. Currently our top three is in top space is third space. In the beginning takes number two.

The gathering is a number three Brent. Where do you put river of souls?

Brent: wait, third, wait, what's number one?

Jeff: Third space.

Brent: Hmm.

Jeff: First space is third space.

Brent: Interesting. Okay. While I stand by my opening thoughts on this episode, I think that I enjoyed my watch of this episode, perhaps even more than I did for third space. Just because for me, I didn't have that big lull. Yes, there was some low energy. Yes, there was some this when you, when you think about this and you overanalyze it, you pick this one apart.

It just doesn't hold up. I think that is perhaps why. Or that's one of the reasons why this movie doesn't enjoy a huge bump with the fandom. Because just judging based on the comments and reactions of people I've heard out there, this isn't exactly a well loved movie. Maybe it's not a hated movie, but it's not well loved, you know?

So, and I would agree with that, because I'll be honest, after talking about it with you and picking it apart, It just doesn't hold up. Like I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my watch. I only did one watch, so I didn't do two,

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: like, and that might've changed some things for me as well, but I enjoyed it, but it just doesn't hold up.

Um, what is it's third space in the beginning and then. The gathering, this is better than the gathering, but it's not better than in the beginning or third space. So this is going to be our new number three.

Jeff: That's the correct ranking. For sure, but that does it for river of souls. The ship has sailed down the river next week. We're going to be watching a call to arms for the first time. We've never seen this before. We haven't read synopses. We might've seen some screenshots. I don't know though. Um, we're not watching ahead in any way, and we like to guess what the next episode or movie is going to be about.

Brett, you get to go first. What do you think a call to arms is going to be about?

Brent: All right. So I just want to, I want to clarify, I do not know what the plot of this episode or movie is about. What I am aware of is this episode sort of serves as the lead into crusade or almost like the pilot, I guess, to crusade almost like that. So a call to arms, this has to be a new threat. Emerges Sheridan is off.

Dylan is off. They're off doing the, the alliance thing, right? But we, something is about to head up. I'm hoping Lockley is in this show. I don't know if Lockley is in crusade, but I'm, I'm hoping that this is it. There's got, this has to be like, uh, uh, a call to arms. You're summoning people to the station.

You're rebuilding the team, that team that we saw that, that B team at the end of, uh, objects at rest. When they were flying away, and it's like, Oh, that's like the next crew. I would love it if we saw that crew. I don't think we're going to, I don't think it's that crew, but this has to be the assembling of the crew.

That's going to take us in through crusade and the bringing people to the station, getting them there so that we can go into whatever this new threat is. That's what I got. How about

Jeff: like that. I like that a lot. It'd be cool to see that new squad doing stuff. I have a very, very hopeful, hopeful prediction that I'm 99 percent sure isn't correct, but I'm going to put it out there because I hope it is. This is going to be the telepath war.

Brent: Oh,

Jeff: going to be something happening telepath wise and a call to arms.

We must rise up and remember to not remember Byron. I can't believe I said that out loud.

Brent: I like it. I like it. I like it. I like it. I hope yours is better. I hope yours is more right than mine.

Jeff: I sure hope so. I don't think it's going to be, but you know, I can hope into one hand and watch the next episode and the other in next week, we're going to find out exactly what it's going to be about. Thank you everyone so much for joining us here for our discussion today. If you have not already, please subscribe wherever you're watching or listening to us.

Leave us a rating review, do all the things that everyone asks you to do, but actually make a difference in people discovering the show. We'd want to want to grow and continue to grow our amazing community here, of which you are a part. And the best way you can possibly do that is to simply share this show, word of mouth, let somebody know about Babylon five for the first time, who needs to see it for the first time, or just loves the show and wants to visit again.

So with that, until next time, we're, we're Yeah, what's up, Brent?

Brent: Hey, you know what they say, don't you?

Jeff: Another day, another dollar.

Brent: No, dude. Another day, another holla.

Jeff: Man, get the hell out of here.