Soul Hunter For the First Time - Again

[0:00] Coming up tomorrow we're going to watch this episode for the second time so to get you ready and us ready for that here's our very first time watching this episode it's my first.

[0:10] Music. first time welcome to babylon 5 for the first time not a star trek podcast my name is Jeff Akin and i am watching babylon 5 for the first time and i'm brent allen and i'm also watching babylon 5 for the first time jeff and i are two veteran star trek podcasters who are watching babylon 5 for the first time we're going to search for star trek like messages throughout the course of the series applying that lens that we have earned as star trek podcasters to babylon 5 and seeing how close does babylon 5 line up to star trek because we've always heard that but also we're going to try to decide if we should have watched this show sooner that's right and while this is not a podcast about star trek literally in the name that it's not a star trek podcast like brent said we're star trek podcasters we're gonna make the references i think brent you've seen every episode of star trek what 47 times That's what I say on my podcast.

[0:11] Time It feels like the first time All the things I've taken With a place to go It feels like the first time

[1:28] I won't tell you if it's true or not, but that's what I say on the show. Ish, ish, right? 47-ish. But that's just, you're going to get them. But to help us kind of stay on task, right, stay on target with this whole thing, we have the rule of three. We get three Trek references a piece per episode. So, Brent, choose your spots carefully.

[1:48] It's like a game. That's what I like about it. It's like I'm not going to apologize for making Star Trek references. I'm just I'm not going to do it anymore that was one of the that was one of the things I always heard don't apologize for stuff it's going to happen but I like the game I like the built-in game so and it keeps us honest I think keeps us honest and it helps keep us focused on the fact that yeah we're weighing this against Star Trek but this is about Babylon 5 exactly exactly and I.

[2:17] But this week, I'm just declaring it no way. I'm not using my, I don't even know that I'm going to use all three. I'm not using all three early. I'm just, I'm putting it down.

[2:26] I'm saying it's not happening. Now, Jeff, we're talking about the second episode of Babylon 5. This is our second episode. Third, if you count the pilot. We're discussing the show Soul Hunter. Now, for those of you who may not have seen it for a long time, or maybe you just simply haven't watched it, but you're listening to us for some reason anyway, way just because you like the way jeff's voice sounds and i don't annoy you that much uh in this episode our resident mimbari delen freaks out when she sees who has landed in their hospital he's a soul hunter a being that seeks and finds those who are about to die and just before they do he captures their soul their essence but only if they're special enough which delen is especially grieved for because her mimbari souls out there that can't go on to join apparently a great cloud soul of mimbari that they all like the force the mimbari force i think is kind of what it is sinclair really doesn't believe in all this nonsense but it's causing a ruckus on the station so he wants this guy gone but before he leaves the soul hunter sets his sights onto lynn herself because she is a satai a member of the ruling class that was there at the fall of their great leader Gul Dukat however another soul hunter shows up this one with a warning for the crew of Babylon 5 because this.

[3:48] Other soul hunter is bad news often taking lives before they're even ready to die cut to D'Lynn she's on the table about having her soul sucked out when she's rescued just in time as the first soul hunters collected souls turn on him and the weapon turns and hits him and stuff happens but delin is safe that's what's really important and sinclair doesn't really care what happened he's just glad it's over and he bans all soul hunters from babylon 5 that's basically it jeff what are some of your thoughts what was your overall thoughts yeah just tell us what would you think of this episode well i gotta own first i'm gonna give you that ducat piece because that's the dude's name that doesn't count as a reference its name is ducat so thank you you get that so i i looked at you weird because you were about to hit the i was thinking and i was like oh that's not my fault by the way it's spelled different it's spelled different too so it's do hot do hot a little bit right well i think so my thoughts on this really come i mean i have i've i've more than i should maybe but i think out of this whole episodes there's three takeaways for me that soul hunters.

[4:55] Are even a thing and i i'm going to come back to that one this was huge this next one delen is part of the gray council which is the ruling uh bit of the minbari and so like if she's part of the great council what is she doing as an ambassador on babylon five and with that when when murder soul hunter guy is holding on or extracting her soul he looks at it because whatever this thing is soul essence whatever it's legit like he's getting information from them and he looks at this and he's like you you planned such a thing you'll do such a thing so she's either done a thing or planned a thing that he thinks is absolutely incredible my mind goes to what we saw in the gathering and that stuff right between the minbari and the earth uh the earth war that happened there and that we'll probably see a connection but to me this whole the whole concept of this episode has massive religious and spiritual implications right because aside from Sinclair and and the new the new chief medical officer Dr. Franklin which is cool yeah yeah they there's a line where he actually just says he's like this is nonsense this is ridiculous but there it is. We see it.

[6:10] Everyone else, everyone else just accepts that there's a soul. And apparently it's a big deal that they're capturing them. To me, the soul hunters talk about how they're preserving these really important people for posterity sake. And for his, that seems like a really cool thing. I would love to be able to go somewhere and talk with my ancestors, you know, have a conversation with them and learn things. But apparently maybe there's, like you said, there's the force there's heaven there's something out there i don't know i just i think this has some massive implications for what religion is in this babylon 5 universe what about you uh you gave us a good rundown but what uh what did you get out of this well i i there's there's a lot here but i just my overall thought is i didn't love this episode i'm gonna be honest like it was a bit of a drudge to get through it like i still don't know what's really going on on babylon 5 like that's where i am right now we're two episodes in and i feel like i should know and understand more of what's happening than what i really do and i like those those listeners out there who've seen babylon 5 and stuff i'm sure they're like oh you have no idea and i i'm just like i i know i don't and i i'm trying to see how all of this fits together because apparently as we've been told like, this is a five chapter movie and the whole, like each season's a chapter. So I'm trying to figure out how these fit together as part of a chapter.

[7:40] But I didn't necessarily catch the religious aspect of it. Although I certainly understand why someone would, I really, I really do. But I mean, you know, religion is a thing in the world. I AKA the universe, it happens out there and different people have different religions and different people think different things, whether or not that's actually what happens. Not even other shows really answer that question like sci-fi in general when it deals with religion like it it kind of says that it's all bogus but it always leaves it open as a possibility like every star every every uh sci-fi show does that yeah because i'll say it's nonsense but then they'll also have a whole story about well maybe maybe it's not yeah exactly exactly and i mean and.

[8:29] This is not a star trek reference because stargate does it and star wars also does it and uh lots of other ones i think the expanse does it on some level battle star galactica does it like they all do it and there's always something to the religion in this case we literally see the little glowy dot souls floating around so there's something real about it what this almost feels like to me is like it's it's just not a fun episode but I feel like the soul hunter has to come back into this somehow or soul hunters has to come back into this whole piece. And I want to see where they go with it. Like, like, okay, here's your star Trek reference. Do you remember when we first met Lux on a Troy? Very well. It was not that Lux on a was not the Lux on a we got later on in the show. You know what I mean? Like that, that first step, like she's, she's mischievous, she's troublemaking, but she was kind of a, kind of a jerk. Right. you know she wasn't playful she wasn't flirty she wasn't the the gregarious you know a person, and and that that changed and i kind of hope that's what's going to happen here with soul hunter like is as they come back in and they interweave and we get the five or six episodes over the course of the whole series that they may show up in like we're going to find out more about them yeah i can see that i hope that's what that's what's going to happen before you move on.

[9:57] Just had just had to get it in just had to record it officially i didn't say i wasn't going to use any of them exactly i just said not all of them very early um but the the other thing that i well i want to come back to your whole thing about delenn and what her deal is and and the whole setai because i i had a thought on that as well which i want to talk about but like i say overall.

[10:18] It was a episode i kind of hope that it is going to come back and mean a lot more later but it was it was i was more interested in everything else that was happening more than i was in the soul hunter bit well there was some cool stuff in the station right that was going on i think with the soul hunters my my guess here we go like anyone who's watched the show can call me an idiot after this but it's not going to be so much the soul hunters that are something we get but the souls themselves right because that's cool yeah these are just important notable people there's going to be some mystery some something they're going to be like if only we could talk to so and well you know what the soul hunters have so and so let's go hunters have do caught exactly let's go get him back or something he was a big deal you know but but there was this little moment early in the episode that i don't know this is a theme i'm starting to see with sinclair right so murder soul hunters ship is damaged it comes through the jump gate and it's barreling towards the station it's yeah right oh my god the whole thing is gonna cut the commander of the last best hope for peace jumps in a fighter and tries to use a grappling hook. Like they don't have built in defenses for something like this. And why is the, why is Sinclair?

[11:36] Why, why is it Sinclair solving this problem? I didn't understand that at all. Well, I mean, and they did this in the last episode too, that when, when Sinclair wanted to disobey orders, Oh, he's going to go off on the off, off ship mission. And he.

[11:49] No yeah this is why you have other people like he should not be the one going to do that like i agree it's it's almost obnoxious i don't know and this is this is this is a debate a lot of people have but captain kirk would always there's mine kirk kirk would always lead the away mission kirk would always go to the planet it would kirk kirk kirk kirk but what kirk also did is he took teams with him he took other people and he would often open up the door for other people to do things he wanted to be you know the the the cowboy that rode in on the white horse and saved the day he wanted to be that but he also understood there's a team i don't think sinclair cares about his team at this point we saw him like you said we saw him jump out to do the raider thing before we saw the whole thing about like uh commander uh something's going wrong after he tries to take some time you know he's off shift this where he's the one jumping out to grapple the soul hunter's ship dude you have a massive station to command you're the ambassador from earth how how do you have the time to do these things to me that's just a hallmark of poor leadership.

[12:57] Well yeah and i think it's also a hallmark of poor writing or budgetary writing we can only afford so many actors and you have the guy who's going to be superman the guy who's going to do it all and frankly he shouldn't be doing it all and like almost in a way it takes you out of the show because it's you know listen believe i can suspend disbelief about aliens and all of this stuff and jump gates and all that you're doing too much though that's where i draw a line well and they even call it out like so like so there's the whole like uh investigation into the soul hunter and there's a moment where like you said the reasonable the normal soul hunter comes on board and he's like hey this guy's a danger we're trying to catch him and but they don't know that All they know is that soul hunters are these wild people So Sinclair says, I'm going to meet him. And Garibaldi's like, dude, knock it off. You're not the hero. And the quote he says too, he says, I hate it when you get heroic. Cuts into my business. So they're even calling themselves out, like right there for him getting involved in everything. I don't know. It's just a thing I think that sci-fi was doing up to this point, even for a while afterwards. But I can't help but hope this blows up in his face somehow.

[14:07] You can't command. You can't do it all. You just can't do it. Right. And that's not to say that your commander can't ever go off station and go do stuff, but this was an active mission of some importance that required skill and required something, and there are other people on the station who have to have at least equal skill as to the commander, or you should let them go do it anyway. Like, you know, you don't see people running up and pushing their pilot out of the way and say, well, let me fly the ship. Like, no, you're the captain. Go sit in the chair. Yeah. like that's what you're supposed to do so i'm with you on that it that one that one was tough for me can i give you something else that was tough for me yeah where was londo and jakar yes.

[14:49] Completely absent from this whole episode the two best characters in the station right now in my opinion the exact note that i took here and i'm going to emphasize the capitals they are this show to me at this point and i think you know i mean this is kind of given it given the end away a little bit but i mean this is our second episode plus the pilot soul hunter's not not even ranking in the top three for me at this point so you do that math but right one of the key things to look at there is there's no jakar in londo and let's dive in a little bit with the len because i have struggled with the lens since the gathering i just don't i don't understand her i'm sorry i'm sorry let me before you say that also kosh or vosh or whatever he is he wasn't in this episode like at all we have five main species and we're dealing with one and the others don't even make it like they don't even make the the obligatory we're paying you for this episode anyway so we're going to put you in appearance i mean you can hope like i hope like they didn't have to get into makeup or anything you know maybe they got a week off or maybe it was one of those things they made him get in makeup they filmed the scene and then they cut it oh that would suck yeah but yeah delan i've started like i think you and i this is obvious to.

[16:00] Anybody listening love i love jakar i love londo i love them as a thing delen i don't i don't really have a pulse on at this point in any way and this episode i think should have gone further in helping me get one and i and i'm still not there i don't really understand where she's coming from i think that is the point right now yeah because there there is this overhanging mystery of the mimbari had earth on its heels and then they just stopped gave up yeah and there's and and she almost seems like the elder statesman of the whole group Like, because frankly, even Suclair doesn't really feel like he knows what he's doing. Londo and Jakar are at each other's throats.

[16:44] Kosh, who knows what's going on with him, you know, but like Dylan feels like she's kind of, uh, she's the adult. She's the grown. Yeah. Yeah. So there, there's something with her that I feel like we're not supposed to know just yet. Although I do hope we get to know her more as we go through. I have a, I have a question that has nothing to do with her personality though. Yeah. did they change her makeup again i think so because i just know i don't know if it was in the last episode or not but i noticed in this one she had like the the last airbender blue arrow on her head which really stood out to me like i was like is that new in the last episode she had i don't know if it was something on the bridge of her nose with the makeup or something but she just had this weird kind of she seemed cross-eyed at weird times in there and i didn't get that in this one at all it just seemed like the camera was at a weird angle yeah maybe they're they're still uh and we we've seen in other sci-fi shows how they change makeup a little bit as they go and figure it out well and i think yeah it just takes you fit the actor's face they're like hey we made this prosthesis oh you're shaped differently who knew right yeah right so let's dive i want to go back to actually stuff about dylan um i want to go back to what you said kind of in your opening thoughts about the whole murder of ducat and dylan and what this has to do because i have a theory that is actually, I think, very similar to what you just said there, is...

[18:07] Um she said the the soul hunter said to the lenny is like wait you were there when ducat died he said you were there right and and and so i'm gonna have a my theory is more honed into i really think that ducat getting killed is either connected to or is the reason that the mimbari pulled back wow okay and i don't i don't know why and i don't know exactly how and i don't know if it's the actual reason or if it's it like this happened and then something else happened that caused them to pull back like i like i don't know what it is um but you know and obviously dylan was there like she fully gets it yeah and she's she's uh there's something more with her and that's why she's the satai and that's why all that's going on but i i i am i think it's a direct connection the killing of Dukat has everything to do with why they pulled back. Okay. I love, I love that. Right. Because I mean, I don't know what I'm thinking as you said that too, is we don't know when Dylan became a setai.

[19:12] Maybe him, maybe she's in his spot. Like, I don't know how the council works, but I, I really could see that Dukat dying, being this domino that fell that just, it didn't fall in a straight line, right? It hit like six different sets of dominoes, including the earth binbari war delen and the gray council and and who knows what else because it was that was a piece of this episode that like stuck out was dakot and then murder soul hunter going specifically after delen well and then and then to follow that up sinclair clearly asked the question clearly said it to us what is one of the great leaders of the binbari doing playing ambassador like that is the question and and we better find that out like this better be where the show goes because if they just sort of let this trail off I'll be gonna be so mad Jeff.

[20:03] Like, this is what you're telling me you're going to find out, and that's where we need to go. I'm not worried about other things going on out there. They even hint at it a little bit, right? Because she's getting her blood, you know, because Murder Soul Hunter guy decided to gently drain her blood to kill her really slowly while using one of the worst props I've seen in any sense. Are you talking about the actual thing that sucks the soul out? Yeah, the actual soul sucker, yeah. Right what was that i hey i've got a i got a used jiffy pop container i can cut a hole in that that would have looked bad on lost in space like the original that was wow wow i mean it it seriously it looked like stuff that there's my kid's toy box downstairs of all his broken toys and they go in and they're going to like just glue crap together and cut pieces apart and come up with a ray gun that's what it looked like yeah paint it silver and then it's future or whatever and like it's so cool i love because sinclair takes him out and sinclair takes him up by pointing the soul sucker at.

[21:09] Him and i don't know like i have to imagine that.

[21:13] Like the actors like pushing that over and just being like oh my god i look like an idiot this is the worst thing i've i can't believe i hope i hope this gets canceled tomorrow or it's a good thing they're paying me what they're paying me on this but oh it looked so but anyway they drained so they're they got her taken care of in in the med bay or whatever and she's kind of woozy you know not quite there and she starts to give you know starts to give it away and uh and and sinclair asked the question and then she goes you know passes out again he's like yeah that's a that's a sentence we'll never hear what he said i'll bet you i'll bet you a year's salary that's that's a we'll never hear the end of that sentence and we better we the viewers had better hear the end of that sentence right yeah and also sinclair's out there grappling hooks doing all the dirty work maybe he should be reading up on like intergalactic species relationships how did nobody know what this soul hunter was every single alien species what was like 12 or 18 ships were leaving early he's like we're out of here this guy's on board where everybody knew it was up except like earth's like what's i don't understand what's the soul hunter what's the big deal hey where's everyone going what's is there something wrong here the lens literally scream murder murder him now why what's what's the big deal i just we're again three episodes two real episodes in and i feel like humanity just look like morons so far right yeah oh well speaking of humanity looking like morons.

[22:42] Dillon straight up pulls Garibaldi's weapon from the holster, right?

[22:48] Holsters today have holster retention protection. So nobody but the person who is actually supposed to pull the gun can pull the gun out. You can't run up to somebody else and grab their gun out of their holster if it's properly tied in. And any police officer, any security officer is going to have that. You can't run up and grab their holster. Do they not have that in the future? Apparently not. Maybe they trust, right? Hey, it's cool, right? No weapons are allowed. So we're going to trust you to not do this. Yikes.

[23:16] I think my last cool thing I want to say is that when Dr.

[23:19] Franklin, the new chief medical officer, came on board, they actually acknowledged the doctor from the gathering they acknowledged dr kyle said that you know they passed each other in the thing and dr kyle so in the last episode i talked about louis saniago becoming president of earth and the questions i have there they mentioned dr kyle working now as part of the santiago administration so again like i'm just looking there's going to be something and maybe we get to see dr kyle again i'm cool with that i like dr kyle but i'm still thinking they're they're putting some little breadcrumbs on this earth president path for us oh with the whole like uh preserving earth cultures and all that stuff we talked about last time yeah yeah so new doctor i i kind of like this new doctor i don't know that i like him more than dr kyle like dr kyle was kind of cool he was um but this guy you know he's younger he's honestly he's far more handsome good looking guy he's the new guy like i 100 see why they would have made a change from that from the actor they would have recast this particular role and and put it i'm just glad they didn't call this new guy dr kyle like you acknowledge yeah exactly yeah at least acknowledge that yeah what i the thing i loved about him he's he has that that doctor confidence right like that especially when when uh they're talking about the soul sucking activity whatever and just he just looks at sinclair he's like yeah this is nonsense like this guy's wasting our time right now and just the confidence he has in there yeah i think I'm going to like Dr. Kyle a lot.

[24:48] I was thinking about this. Get your finger ready. Here's my next Star Trek reference.

[24:52] Not Dr. Kyle. What's the new guy's name? Dr. Franklin. Yeah, Dr. Franklin. Because I had a thought on this. If you had to compare Dr. Franklin to any of the other Star Trek doctors, who do you compare him to? Who does he remind you of the most? I hadn't thought of that at all. Pulaski. Yes. That's exactly what I was thinking. Totally.

[25:12] Pulaski. Absolutely. Who is great, by the way. Like, total aside on a Babylon 5. She's great. Got a bad rap. And yeah she was fantastic she honestly she was far more interesting than beverly crusher don't anybody's help me yeah i don't don't anybody ever tell gates i love gates but dr pulaski was awesome awesome awesome she really was and even had an whole here we go had a full season arc on her quote-unquote racism towards data like she actually changed as a character within one season which is more than you can say for the six that we had yeah so um i've got a couple things for you okay a couple of things fun things that i noticed did you notice the name of the shuttlecraft coming in no the eyes them off oh that's cool yeah you always love to hear eyes them off in any kind of uh sci-fi thing and no matter who it's from uh okay back of the hand communicators yeah i noticed it on sinclair's hand in the last episode and in this one he's running down the hallway like speaking into the back of his hand and it's this little thing that they slap on the back of their hand those suck totally and and like it looks kind of futuristic but i have an apple watch on my hand And I can use my Apple Watch as a phone when my regular phone's not around. And I got to tell you, holding my hand up to my face to communicate makes my arm tired. And it sounds terrible. You sound terrible.

[26:35] I have an Apple Watch as well. And I used the phone app one time when I first got it. Because I'm like, this is so cool. I'm like, this sucks. My arm's tired.

[26:44] I can't hear anything. Who would do this? And like when i go back and i think of like uh get smart or you know any of those spies that like they're using their watch i'm going to talk to you into my wrist like no no well i don't again and how brilliant was it of the next generation yeah but to put it put your two right two and two two and two it's hard but i mean just to put it on the chest oh my god yeah it's brilliant that That might be the most meaningful innovation out of the next generation, you know? It really is. It really is. Although I got to tell you, I have a Comm Badge, a next generation Comm Badge, that Bluetooths to my phone. That's awesome. And it has a speaker and a microphone in it. And it is a functioning Comm Badge. It's horrible. Really? Yeah. You can, the sound quality is not any good.

[27:37] I'm not really sure that people, if you have other stuff happening around you, it picks up all that noise it it's cool it's gimmicky but it's not truly practical and you know let's just say in the future those things get better but the the hand the hand ones on the back like do you remember the um oh crap here comes my third one and in voyager and deep space nine they had each show had their own version of flashlights yes that were like one of them was like a box that was held in a hand and that's how you used it and like no no way that doesn't work and the other one was was it oh the other one was like a wrist strap and you held your wrist up Like you were doing a thing like, no, the most practical thing is do what we have today, which is a handle with a flashlight that you can just point because holding it with your wrist up, you literally have eliminated your entire hand at that point. And no matter what you do with your hand, it's going in that direction. Like if I can't hold a flashlight in my hand, you know what? I can stick it in my neck and hold it that way or, you know, under my arm while I'm trying to do something.

[28:39] And frankly, we have a quasi military organization here and we've all seen law enforcement or whatever with a, you know, flashlight in one hand, a firearm in the other. And you go you put that thing on your wrist and now one's pointing this way and the other's pointing that there's nothing good about that no yeah yeah so anyway stuff on the back of the hand yes it looks cool but i'm calling out and just say in in reality it's it's not good yeah uh i don't like okay last thing soul hunter literally use the guard i'm injured trick to get out of a sell yep right uh really really did he use it but god may god bless our favorite guest actor in so many things william morgan shepherd who is just i mean incredible oh yeah that was the soul yeah he's incredible wow did they turn like it's like hey here's your direction i want you to take the appropriate level that you'd play this guy at turn that up by 10 and then turn it up a little bit more oh my god it was it was it was it was hard to watch this guy go it was oof it's rough right that was rough i well i think we've hit that spot where we're gonna boil it all down and see if it has any of that star trekky quality to it okay we got to take away the buzzer because now.

[29:55] We're there uh does it have a deep moral message to it or is it holding up a mirror to society you know babylon 5 and star trek are basically the same thing like is it that should we have watched this episode a lot sooner what do you think so you know last week i think that we had some pretty good back and forth about the star trek message that potentially was or wasn't in that one this one um you know we really talk about a couple things you know what kind of our closing thoughts would we watch this again and then we're going to rate it zero to five deltas as to how star trek episode was in my opinion i don't see any reason this episode could could have or should have happened this could have been a mention a part something else in another episode oh by the way they're these soul hunters this thing happens could have been a b story or something it wasn't enough to carry an episode i've watched this episode now uh preparing for this three times and i'm sorry yeah and in my opinion i'll i'll own the first 44 minutes because that's what we're doing for the podcast that's 88 minutes of my life i'm never gonna get back and uh and i feel like somebody somebody owes me on that but on a scale zero to five star trek messages this one gets zero deltas from me what about you i i am willing to give this a it's a first season episode that's just not very good.

[31:13] I hope it comes, I hope it circles back and this one becomes more important later on. And you just go, it wasn't the greatest episode, but it was, it was still important. It set some certain things up and, and did what we needed to. Maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Maybe this has zero bearing going forward on anything else, or maybe the only thing that we really learned here, the whole thing that we learned here was the lens of Satai.

[31:37] And that's the thing that's going to carry us through. Like we could have learned that. I didn't need a whole episode for that. Um i i'm going to give it a one delta wow okay because i did find a star trek thing that i really liked it was not what the show was going for okay but if it was in star trek it's absolutely what star trek would be going for and here's what i want to say last week i was pretty miffed at the idea that they replaced uh commander commodore o uh takashima takashimi takashima takashima they replaced a strong ethnic female character with the white chick although i love ivanova great i just want to say that like she is a she is great but she says in this particular episode she says i'm russian now in 1994 that's a big deal now compare that to 1968 when star Trek first introduced Chekhov as a Russian in the middle of the Cold War in 1994 we get a Russian who's in a command position as the Cold War in real life is ending and the Berlin Wall has been has felled I think at this point the USSR is dissolving or it has is about to be dissolved like all of that stuff is happening and we're taking a Russian and putting them in command not But in that executive level command.

[33:03] They're not the captain, but still they're right there. And they're much higher than what Chekhov was on the bridge of the Enterprise.

[33:09] And the fact that you put that there in 1994 to say Earth is going to come together and we're going to get past this crap that we're in right now in 1994 and we're going to be able to move forward and be in hope. I find hope and i find positive messages in that that is super star trek i do not think that's what jms was trying to write i do not think that that was a message he was maybe he was i don't know but i don't think that that's really where he was going but it's there anyway and i really loved it um and it has nothing to do with the rest of the episode at all it just was which was some of the original like the fact who hurrah's on the bridge of the starship enterprise was and the fact that sulu was it was there as a pilot those they did it never was about those those guys they're about the fact that they're there but the fact that they were there was important and i feel that same way here about this other than that I have nothing else about this episode that I think is important or that I think is Star Trek. That's a great find. Yeah. I give it the one delta, and that's about what I can do. I don't need to see this episode ever again. Agreed. I'm okay.

[34:16] I'm okay. I just got to double down on your find. I think it's a great one. I was a senior in high school in 1994. I lived through the falling of the Berlin Walls. My high school years was the end of the Cold War. It's very formative for me. And yeah, it was a big deal. We literally, like me and my generation, the target audience really for Babylon 5 at the time, our whole lives were built on Soviets are bad, Russians are bad, right? We had movies like Red Dawn and Ruskies and stuff like that that eventually turned into Rocky 4.

[34:48] Yeah. You know, if I can change, you can change. I mean, we needed those messages. I think you're right. This is Babylon 5 making the Rocky speech. Each it is a great best hope for peace yeah that's good fine and i tell you that maybe jms absolutely maybe meant to do it that way yeah that's great so well i'm happy very happy right now to put a stamp on soul hunter we're done we did it we made it next week next week the episode is called born to the purple and after this you and i is it yeah we're gonna be watching that one born to the purple purple okay so we haven't seen this before and please please please laugh at us please be tell us we're morons tell us we have no idea don't spoil anything for us don't send us tweets nothing and say oh wait until xyz happens please don't don't don't don't do that all we do is look at the title the title of the next episode nothing more not even a picture nothing so we know it's born to the purple what we like to do though the other game we play so we're going to guess what it's about oh i forgot about this yeah okay so what do you think born to the purple born to the purple okay purple is a regal color um And so this is going to be like somebody is going to come on board the station. Somebody is going to come on to the station who is supposed to be like the next king of some world or queen of some world, the next ruler.

[36:15] And they don't want to be. And they're seeking asylum on the station. OK, that sounds good. Something of that nature.

[36:22] My guess is we had heard a bit about the Minbari caste system a little while ago. I think this is going to be almost similar to what you're saying, but I think purple might be a designation for a cast within that society, and it might be someone born to a cast who's trying to break out of that in some way. We shall see. And we'll find out right here on Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. Thank you so much, everybody, for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And, hey, even if you're not listening on Apple Podcasts, why don't you drop by, leave us a rating and review. That'd be fantastic. And also, you can follow us on Twitter at Babylon First. So in the meantime, remember to be good, be well, and live long. Jeff! Oh, my gosh. Not a Star Trek podcast. I'm going to get it eventually. It's my first time.

[37:17] Music.

[37:26] And now that we both know what we thought about this one the first time join us tomorrow right here for Babylon 5 for the second time.