War Zone

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen. Jeff and I were two 30 years, way too late. And guess what? We fell in love with it so much that now we are continuing that journey with crusade for the first time.

Jeff: And just like always, we're going to be searching for the deep hidden messages that we find in the series, but don't worry, those are not Star Trek messages because this is not a Star Trek podcast. And to reinforce that we're keeping our long running game of three. We're keeping our long running game, the rule of three, which gives

Brent: that sentence over Jeff. You're going to have a hard time splicing that together.

Jeff: I am. But don't worry, those are not Star Trek messages, because this is not a Star Trek podcast. And to reinforce that, we're keeping our long running game, The Rule of Three. This game limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds.

Brent: And if we make one of those references,

Jeff: You're gonna hear this.

Brent: Hey Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah, Brent.

Brent: it's, it's not a new show, but it's kind of a new show. We're opening a new page here with Babylon five for the first time. Yeah. You know, something we haven't done in a really long time. And I really kind of miss it.

Jeff: What's that?

Brent: We haven't read any reviews from our incredible folks out there who have taken time to leave us reviews.

Can we read one? Like, can we, can we bring that back and do that?

Jeff: Yeah, let me pull one up here. Alright, here's one from June. Hmm? And Brent, this is a five star review. Oh, yes. This is from Apple. I know, right? I'm glad I kept that drop. That's a good one. This is from Apple Podcasts. Back in June, Jusan Kubo says, This is exactly what a veteran watcher loves to listen to, going on the virgin journey with a new watcher.

There are other podcasts that have the same type of theme, but this show does it so much better. Well done.

Brent: Well, juice on Kubo. Thank you so much. We appreciate that. Sorry. It took us so long to get back to this. And, uh, Yeah, we hope you enjoyed our virgin journey. Um, Jeff, I'm gonna try to keep this PG 13, but that cherries popped now. So

Jeff: We're in the process of popping it still. We're on a, we're on a crusade pop that. And while I

Brent: That is I don't know if we can keep that in or not Wow

Jeff: that review. Also, I don't know that we're better. We're just different. There's a lot of great podcasts out there and it's cool. Cause there's a

Brent: he he had it right or she he or she had it right I We are better hearts to everybody else out there, but you know, let me dust my shoulders off here. If you have any complaints, you can send those to Jeff at Babylon five for the first time. com.

Jeff: I love those.

Brent: Now, Jeff, um, along with reading reviews, we play our game of three.

We love our games. We love the things that we do here. The extras that make this show that much more special, just like our friend Tucson says. Another one that we like to play is when we get to the end of the show, we like to try to make predictions about what the next week's episode is going to be about.

Jeff, we only have so many more times we can do this.

Jeff: I know,

Brent: This one is going to end sooner rather than later, because after this, we know what it's about. Well, this is the part of the show where we look back from last week and see what our prediction is and just see how close we were. So Jeff, we're watching the first episode of crusade.

It's called war zone. What did you think this one was going to be about?

Jeff: So I thought this was going to be president Sheridan, christening the new crew of the Excalibur. And they were going to head out. End up on some planet that, uh, there was some kind of war zone, some conflict that would cause them to come together as a crew.

Brent: No Sheridan. We had Sheridan and call to arms.

Jeff: We did not here.

Brent: Not here. A new crew came together, sorta, you know,

Jeff: Yeah, kind

Brent: guy kept a few new people or kept us few old people, brought a few new people together. So yeah, I'll give you that. And. They set off by the end,

Jeff: They did. And they went to a planet and there was war there, but it didn't really bring them together necessarily. It wasn't really a war zone.

Brent: right.

Jeff: Yeah. What did you think it was going to be about

Brent: Well, I, I said with the drug plague having hit earth, that panic is spreading and earth is pretty much turned into a war zone and the new crew must solve this problem or set out to solve the problem before earth annihilates itself.

Jeff: that? Well, there was writing.

Brent: Uh, earth has turned into a war zone. I

Jeff: It really

Brent: that piece was very clear and I, I don't know, I think the crew had to solve the problem, which is go find the cure to the plague. Um,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: you know, before earth annihilates itself, that might be a stretch too far, but you know,

Jeff: A little too much, but, uh, pretty close. Yeah.

Brent: well, for those that it may have been a while or those who simply haven't watched this episode ever, or in a really long time, first episode of crusade, no, some, a lot of people tend to skip these, Jeff, why don't you break this one down for us? Tell us exactly what happened in war zone. It's a PG

Jeff: Mutiny! It's mutiny on a deep exploration vessel and it takes the CO and the XO to settle everything down. It turns out people are pretty freaked out about this whole Drok plague thing. All kinds of people. People across the Interstellar Alliance, Earth, and Mars. They assign the mutiny busting Captain Gideon to the Excalibur.

Not because he's the best person for the job, but maybe because He's the worst? Like, he gets stuff done, but not always the way he's supposed to. And Sheridan's all about that. Now, you remember the Excalibur, right? Super powerful, new ship with a 60 second refractory period? Well, it's gonna do exactly what President Sheridan said it was going to.

Find a cure to the drug plague.

Brent: 13 show.

Jeff: Am I wrong, though? It's exactly what it is. Ha!

Brent: I can't do it. I can't keep on when I see you cracking up too. I can't, I'm so sorry. That took us. I heard it. It rattled around my brain for a second. I went, Oh,

Jeff: They

Brent: sorry,

Jeff: crewed the ship with a bunch of scientists and Doreen and Nafil from A Call to Arms, and they're on their way. But where are they going? To a planet that Interplanetary Expeditions has been working. Not to check out the cool artifacts that IPX is digging up, but because of the Drok ship that crashed on the surface.

These Drok are no joke. They channel their inner G. I. Joe and blast ships out of the sky with their handguns. It's amazing. On their way, Gideon hears a voice and just talks to it like this is a thing that happens all the time. On the planet SETI ALPHA FIVE! I mean SETI 4, they hook up with the IPX crew and meet Max Eilerson and a guy named Trace.

We see the face behind the voice that he was hearing as well and Brent It's a techno ma, a familiar techno mage. It's Galen, and he's using his techno magic to take the drop out as some kind of force ghost that can still shoot lightning trip's, a huge success. They get some data off the ship and they get a Dr.

Prisoner of War Max who can kind of sort of speak. DRA doesn't get far interrogating the dra, but Gideon sure does. He gets in his face and pushes so hard. Thera suddenly starts speaking English. With an Earth Force crew, Doreena, Max, Trace, and Galen, we are on our crusade. Brent, what'd you think about this one?

Brent: Jeff. I got to tell you, if this episode is any indication of what this series is going to be like, Then I am going to love this show. And the only thing that I'm going to be mad about is the fact that I know this show only goes for 13 episodes. I loved this episode. I had so much fun with it. I laughed.

It was tight. It introduced the characters. I feel like I know who these folks are, but I also feel like there's so much more about them all to learn. It set the tone. It gave us, it gave us what we needed. And you know, the craziest thing about this, Jeff, according to the comments and stuff that I've seen on Patrion and YouTube and, and over on our discord page.

This was an episode JMS didn't even want to write

Jeff: Yeah, I

Brent: because he wanted to just leave it all with call to arms and then just start with whatever we get next week. This was a JMS dude. I love you. The fact that you didn't want to do this and you still made this episode as good as it was the writing of it.

Oh my gosh. Master at your craft. I love this. I loved the captain. This, this may be, what is his name? Gary something, right? Gary Cole. This may be my favorite Gary Cole role ever. If this continues over the next few episodes. Um, I, I, I liked Daniel day, Kim. I've loved him since, since, uh, lost. And then the new stuff he's been in since then.

Um, Even, even Norena, uh, Dorena, Norena, Dorena Nafil. Alright, we're not doing the whole Ivanova, Ivanova, Ivanova thing here with her. Uh, Dorena, um, I think they changed her makeup a little bit. And, I, I, I don't know, she just, she fit in this show. The fact we get Galen as a Technomage in the main cast. Yes, I'm for it.

I love it. Um, I, I just, ah, there's one little part that I had an issue with. We'll talk about that in a few moments, a character specifically. And I was like me, but Jeff, I, I'm a big fan of this and I, I am so sad knowing right here at the outset, it's only 13 episodes, but you know what, I am locked in for 13 episodes into this show for whatever it winds up being studio interference or not.

Oh my gosh, I'm in how about you?

Jeff: don't know. I mean, like you're super excited

Brent: Don't you dare? Don't you freaking dare?

Jeff: Brent dude, I am in, I am so in,

Brent: it.

Jeff: dude, this was a great pilot. This was so good. Like you said, met the key players. We set the stage. We did all this stuff. Like a thing though, that I noticed about it that I loved, and this is going to sound counterintuitive, but this didn't feel like Babylon five.

Brent: No, no,

Jeff: It also, it also didn't feel like Star Trek. It also didn't feel like Star Wars, like it felt like its own thing. And what I love about this is it's clearly in the Babylon five universe. We can see that, right? And there's a lot of stuff that, that points us that direction. But if you've never watched Babylon five.

And you watch just this you haven't even watched a call to arms and you come into this Hey, here's a cool new show. I

Brent: I would be in

Jeff: yeah, there's no like

Brent: I would be in.

Jeff: there's no prerequisite There's no nothing like I just think um, I just think it was really this was really well executed I have a thing with a character too so i'm gonna be interested and see if we're on the same page with that, but I think that um, Like if this is how this thing opens And it's a thing that JMS wrote against his will and it set things up this smoothly.

Brent, this is going to be a hell of a ride.

Brent: Yeah. I am. I am all for it. Jeff. I got to tell you, I don't have a lot of notes. I was just in the episode.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: You know, I was just in the episode, so I'll be interested to see where we go with this and how this, how this one works out. But, um, let's start at the top. Like, cause I think when you're at, when you're at a situation like this, you got to just kind of run through the cast or at least the main pieces of the cast.

So let's start at the top. Let's start with the captain, Gary Cole, captain, Matthew Gideon.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Jeff, my note about him was this captain feels like what Sinclair was supposed to be only better acted rest in peace, Michael O'Hare, but it feels like to me, what, what Sinclair was supposed to be and specifically what I'm talking about when we first saw Sinclair in the gathering, what was our very first thing that we saw with him?

What did, what did he do? Do you remember?

Jeff: Uh, he came like the dude was walking through the customs and he's like, no, you can't come in here with dust.

Brent: can't come in here with drugs. I'm going to whatever, what was the very first interaction we had with Gideon in this episode? Yeah.

Jeff: Was him coming in and shutting down a riot.

Brent: That's what I mean. It's kind of the same introduction between the two. Gideon did it better or Gary Cole did it better. You know, um, I just, I, I later on, I was like, okay, Sinclair and Gideon are two very different characters, you know, but, uh, this, I mean, I, I love this captain, like he's, he's, he's got snark, he's got attitude, kind of does it his own way, but he's good at what he does,

Jeff: Yeah He it's gonna take me some time to not see him as Bill Lumberg like I just want to get that out of the way It's what everybody's like. Oh, yeah. Yes Iconic role,

Brent: Jeff. If you could not typecast him, that would be great.

Jeff: be great Well, I think that's exactly the thing because I feel like he really has been typecast Since then and like there's there's he's so good when he came down and shut down the mutiny. I was a little like Really playing, playing tough guy, but I was seeing him as Bill Lumberg still, when I got out of my own way and just let the character be my God, like he has that silent strength, you know, or he doesn't have to yell.

He doesn't have to get big. He just says the thing. And they're like, yes, sir.

Brent: Well, because you, you know what his personal life philosophy is. Don't you?

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: If you ain't first, you last.

Jeff: That's good. Yeah, no, I, I, I, I'm a huge fan of Gideon. I even like the way they set it up where it's like, look, you had a ton of first contacts and, uh, like you're no diplomat. You're also not a psychopath. So like you can go in there and you can make your own decisions. So you're the one that we need out there.

I thought that was a really cool setup for him.

Brent: And you know what else I like? He's unlike any other captain I can think of in sci fi. He's not Kirk. He's not Picard. He's not Cisco. He's not Janeway. He's not Archer. He's not, uh, um, Burnham. Um, he's not Picard again. He's not Rios, maybe a little bit of Rios, but he's, he's, he's not Dow. He's, he's, he's not any of those Star Trek guys.

He's not Han Solo. He's not Sheridan. He's not Sinclair. He's not Jack O'Neill might actually be his closest analog is Jack O'Neill.

Jeff: Well, I was going to say, I almost think if you take Jack O'Neill, Captain Kirk and Admiral Adama from Battlestar Galactica and kind of mix them

Brent: yeah.

Jeff: that might be, that might be him.

Brent: Yeah, I was getting ready to get to the, the best galactic guys in just a moment, but yeah, no, that's, I mean, he's his own dude and I love, I love, I'm, I'm going to love this character. I really am. Yeah.

Jeff: done that, but I also think, you know, what we got out of midnight on the firing line was the storyline for season one was the hole in Sinclair's mind. We got a little bit of that with Gideon near the end of this as well.

There's a mystery with him and the techno mages. There's some connection. Where he ended up Sheridan doubt in space with the lens, just letting him float out there with the, and he knows Galen. So like there's, I think that's going to be a big part of his development in this half of a season that we're going to get with him.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. So that is a captain Gideon. Um, let's talk about Galen. He was, he is one of the two carry overs from our episode last week from the movie. Um, we only get two carryovers from the film. Yeah, very interesting. But Galen comes in here. We did talk about him a whole lot more, but I mean, Jeff, can we just talk about what it is getting a techno mage in the main, in the main cast?

Jeff: That's it. It's what we wanted. We watched geometry of shadows brand, which would historically and infamously we didn't like, but I'm

Brent: Cause at the time, without knowing the rest of the story, it was kind of weird.

Jeff: Our whole thing was like, those techno majors are cool. We want more techno mages, but we got more techno mages

Brent: Yeah. Everybody's like, you know, the techno majors isn't what this episode was about. Right. Yeah.

Jeff: now.

Brent: he said at the end. Okay.

Jeff: That one thing. Yeah. Didn't get that at all. I, I wasn't super high on Galen in a call to arms. You know, I got, and I, we talked about that a little bit. I liked him in this. It, I just, I don't know. I didn't, maybe he's more in, it gets the character more or something like that. But. Totally get him.

He's an outcast with the techno mages also, which is pretty going to be pretty interesting.

Brent: Mm hmm. Um, so I have a question about techno mages. I thought from geometry of shadows, the techno mages were very clear to us that they were going beyond the rim. They were going where the other first ones went. They were going away.

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: Turns out they didn't actually leave. They just went into hiding and I feel like there's stuff there that either we're supposed to know and Brent just missed it, or there's stuff there that we just don't know, or he's retconning some stuff and I'm not sure what it is.

Jeff: Think he covered some of it in a call to arms where Galen talked about the techno mages left They they they took off they're gone, but there's a lot of stuff going on here So some of us stuck around a little longer 20, maybe 30 years just to kind of watch stuff So there's a small group of techno mages.

I don't know how many But a small group that are still kind of hanging around.

Brent: I guess. And they're just, they're just hiding. So, um, I will tell you one of the, I don't want to say a cringe moment, but one of the little like, Oh really? We're going to do that again. Is when Galen looked at the camera and went, and so it begins.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: I was like, really, we're going back to that line. We

Jeff: going to, we're going to hit that drum a little bit. It's a thing, right? It's a thing. Also. It's like, okay. Okay. Also, like I've decided that techno magic is derived from and can do whatever it is, the plot needs it to do.

Brent: well, of course, and it's, it's defined as science that we just don't understand,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: which,

Jeff: So there you go. Right,

Brent: in science fiction,

Jeff: exactly.

Brent: because what do we know about JMS? He tries to be as scientifically accurate as he can be.

Jeff: Right.

Brent: He taught, he talks to his people and you got to have the rotating shifts because of gravity and you're going to fling the star furies out and you're gonna do this, that, and the door has got to fling.

And he thinks through those things really, really well. But when they needs the fiction to just, when he needs stuff to just happen.

Jeff: Yeah. Well, we lean into the fiction side of this whole thing.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: We want to hit next

Brent: Um, Doreen, uh, briefly with her, cause I don't think we got a ton of Doreen. I think we learned a lot about Doreen in this one, but I did, I found myself liking her better in this one. She feels like she could. She feels like she could be really a part of the cast in this one. Whereas last time she just sort of felt like a guest actress, you know?

Um, but they, they did change her makeup. I'm not wrong about that. Right.

Jeff: I saw the same thing She had like little cracky things on her forehead and a call to arms

Brent: Right. And now it was, I mean, it wasn't smooth. There was definitely something there, but I mean, we're talking the way they changed the way that trills look over time, or even the way that, uh, Bajorans looked over time, right? Like,

Jeff: Exactly

Brent: yeah, yeah.

Jeff: Subtle but definitely impactful and frankly it lets like her face Be more apparent.

Brent: Yeah, right. Um,

Jeff: Let's talk about Matheson Daniel Dae Kim. No, that's a the XO Daniel

Brent: Oh, the XO. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel Day Kim Matheson. Yeah. So stop me. If you've heard this one before Jeff, you have your first officer who has some telepathic genes kind of got to keep it a little quiet. We don't really want to throw it out there too much. You know, this one's maybe a little more out in the open than the last one, but Here we are yet again.

First

Jeff: this one, but this one on his shoulder, on his uniform, he has the psych or symbol.

Brent: Does he owe a missed that? Oh, I'm going to have to look for that.

Jeff: So things I picked up on were, you know, they kind of slipped in. Well, you know, he's a telepath, so whatever. And then I saw the little psych or thing, but they mentioned there are new rules for telepaths.

Brent: Mm hmm.

Jeff: So that must be a result of not the telepath war, but the telepath crisis as they rebranded it. But I also noticed he doesn't wear gloves

Brent: Oh

Jeff: and that was a really big deal with telepaths before.

Brent: Yeah, it was, wasn't it? I wonder, is he just like a really low top? Well, I mean,

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: yeah, I don't, or, or maybe it's just part of the new rules. It's part of the, part of the, yeah, we're not wearing gloves anymore. Sorry. Okay. And we'll be in your brains. If you broadcast it to us, that's on you to stop.

Not us.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: um, I will tell you this though. Um, and this kind of goes more back to Gideon than it does Matheson, but I really like Gideon fighting for his people. I liked the whole thing of like, no, this is my first officer. He's the best man I've ever served with. I don't give two blips. If he's a telepath, he's my guy.

Jeff: That's a good pun right there with the blips.

Brent: I did it on purpose. Absolutely. Absolutely. I did.

Jeff: we even did that with the riot guy, right? The guy was starting a little riot and stuff and he's like, no, we don't gotta we don't gotta push this like, you know He gets his one. It's fine.

Brent: Yep. Yep. He can. I mean, but that's, that's called having control and confidence, right? And it just, my note that I had after this was, I can imagine that this was a really fun role for Gary Cole to play. Like Gideon had to have been a great role to play. So

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: sorry, we're not talking about Gideon. We're talking about

Jeff: It's gonna be fun with Mathis and this is I think one of his first like Continuing gigs he was Gideon in angel. I think a little before this

Brent: Oh, was he

Jeff: I think it was before this came out and that was like, I don't know three or four episodes he was On that and he was great and then of course he ended up on lost shortly after this But um, yeah, I dig the character.

I dig him a lot There's a we didn't get a ton of him in this but i'm excited I mean, it's tango t freaking kim right like

Brent: I can, I can definitely tell he's much earlier in his acting career and skills.

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: In this episode, um, he's, he's still a little stiff. Maybe that's just how he's trying to be, you know? Um, also I can tell you what, he's not Ivanova.

Jeff: No, not

Brent: he, this guy is not a guy who bucks the system and has chit chat with the boss and just,

Jeff: is that's such a great point. So, oh god, we only have one. Okay, so oftentimes when a show does a spinoff They kind of recreate. Well, here's the this person. Here's the this person and They didn't do that at all with this. There's no there's not a Sheridan. There's not a Delenn. There's not a Jakar There's not a Nevada.

They're their own people.

Brent: hmm.

Jeff: That's again really brave choice and done really well

Brent: Right. Right. So

Jeff: kind of

Brent: oh, go ahead.

Jeff: I say they do kind of have a Franklin though.

Brent: Was gonna say I didn't get her name, but we got a new doctor

Jeff: Yeah, Sarah. Dr. Sarah Chambers is her

Brent: Okay, what else has she been on? She feels like she's played this role on Not the Orville, but on something

Jeff: so I, the only thing I know is in a call to arms. She was the one who said, this is as faster as I can go.

Brent: No, really

Jeff: So she moved from navigator to, uh, to chief medical officer,

Brent: Okay. Well, there you go.

Jeff: quite the

Brent: you go. What'd you what'd you think about we didn't get a ton of her But what'd you what'd you think about her?

Jeff: I felt like they are hitting a lot of tropes for her character. Uh, I didn't feel like she, I felt like she was, she read the part and didn't act the part.

Brent: Mm

Jeff: Uh, I'm interested in the character. She's the one who has a tie to earth, right? So that's going to keep us. On earth and what's happening on earth, but the performance really hit me the wrong way.

Brent: Okay

Jeff: What did you think?

Brent: I, I don't think that we got enough of her to, for me to have any kind of a feeling about her whatsoever just yet. Like, like it's, it's one of those, I gotta go. I need to wait and see on this one. You know, hopefully we get more out of her. Like she's on, I don't think she's on the DVD cover, but she's on like promotional photo So

can, can we talk about the biggest person who's a waste in this cast? At least in this episode. And I'm not really sure what they're going to do with this character going forward. And it kind of makes me sad because I was really looking forward to this character being here. Tracy Scoggins, Dr. Or captain Elizabeth Lockley.

Jeff: She actually wasn't on the episode at all.

Brent: Yeah. Like also, um, Jeff, I don't know at what point it really dawned on you. It was, it was, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes into the episode before I really got. Oh, this is not a show set on a space station. This is a show on a ship that's going to be gallivanting around the galaxy. It's that story, not one that's on a station.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: Lockley is the captain of the station unless she gets reassigned, but she's on the DVD cover.

Jeff: Well, because she's the connection point, right? She's the one to be like, Hey, we're still a Babylon five thing.

Brent: She's going to be like Drew Barrymore in the, um, the, the screen movies where she had all of three and a half minutes at the beginning of the film.

Jeff: She spent more time taking promotional photos than she did filming her

Brent: Yes. And she got top billing in the movie. So no offense to Drew Barrymore, get your bag, honey. Do what you gotta do, but I mean, dang. So yeah, that's us. So what's Tracy, Tracy Scoggins doing here? Um, I gotta tell you to kind of go back to Galen just a second, where I really got excited about Galen was in the intro.

Cause I, did you watch the intro?

Jeff: yeah, yeah,

Brent: liked this intro. Like I was into this intro, like very different from Babylon five stuff. Um, but, uh, I'm like Tracy Scoggins pops up and like, okay, so what's she going to do here? And then Galen pops up and I was like, Oh, it's Galen. We get a techno page. Yes. All right. So outside of those guys, uh, there's the archeologist.

What was his

Jeff: Yeah. Now we, now we take a step down in

Brent: Yeah, this is the guy that I say, not a fan.

Jeff: Max Eilerson.

Brent: Yeah, that guy, that guy. Um, my, my note on him is I just don't buy his attitude or his character. Like, I, like, this is the one part where I'm like, I don't even know that this is written well, or maybe it's just acted so poorly or I, I just, I'm not there with him yet.

Jeff: And my note was this Eilerson guy feels like boredom personified.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: It's just like, there's nothing

Brent: my question to that though, is Jeff. Is he supposed to be like that?

Jeff: exactly. That was the kind of, I'm like, maybe,

Brent: Yeah,

Jeff: there was something here. I don't know, but

Brent: because here's the thing. You and I have been around the block long enough to know, especially around JMS's work, that not everything is as they seem.

Jeff: very true.

Brent: You know what I mean? Dude, how many points did I just score with the B5 fans out there for

Jeff: should have got a lot. Cause that's a, not a deep cup, but that's a season one

Brent: Right? Right. Um, but I, I am with it enough to be able to go.

Maybe there's something about him. I don't understand just yet. But as where I'm sitting right now, one episode in, I don't, it's not even that I don't like the character and I don't like the character right now. I really don't. Like he seems scheming and shmarmy and just about himself and not, you know, he's all, he's, he's all IPX stuff, you know, he's all about the corporate and what he

Jeff: The corporation.

Brent: And, but it also just, there's just something that doesn't ring true about it to me either right now. That's just where I am right now. But. I'm, I'm holding out, holding out a little bit of hope,

Jeff: I feel exactly the same. How do you feel about Trace?

Brent: which one was Trace? Oh,

Jeff: Kefir.

Brent: I'm sorry. Let me repeat. I'm sorry. Who's Trace?

Jeff: Also, Trace was in the, uh, was it season five episode of Babylon 5? The dude who beat up the ranger in training.

Brent: Was he

Jeff: guy, different guy, same name. Yeah. I was like, is Trace like the Thomas of the 23rd century? Like everyone's just named Trace.

Brent: That's funny.

Jeff: Yeah, I am. I immediately did not like this guy.

Brent: Do you think we're going to see him? Is he part of the, was he in the intro or something?

Jeff: he wasn't in the intro, but as Gideon was walking down and being like, so here's the people we got.

And this Trace guy, you got to talk to him. He's got some stuff. I'm like, Oh no. Trace is in for the

Brent: Is he going to be, are you sure he's not going to be like a loo? Or,

Jeff: okay with that.

Brent: know, um, who was, who is that guy? He was a one off. He was the mortal combat dude played one of the security officers. And we were like, oh, it's this guy. Oh man. He's amazing. We hope we see him and we never did again.

Jeff: maybe? But he was in the one where, uh. We're shared the bomb threat

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. The bomb threat. And when his name like Charlie or something like that,

Jeff: it's like more Mauritius or something like

Brent: Morishi. Yeah. Yeah. Morishi. Um, Maybe he's, maybe he's that, like, it seems like he's going to be bigger than he is and we're not going to get anything else out of him. I'll, I'll say this about the doctor to kind of go back to that character.

She wasn't the first doctor we met though. Like, weren't we introduced to another doctor? And then they're like, Oh, actually it's going to be this other girl over here. Because I remember thinking. And I just, I don't remember who, who it was in, in this moment right now of, Oh, this is going to be our doctor.

And then they start talking to this other girl. And I was like, Oh, actually, I guess she's going to be the doctor or the

Jeff: So they had a, they had a room full of nerds. They're like, here's your, this is to this archeologist, this other is this, this is, and like, they kind of like, I think they hovered on one for a second. Maybe it was the last one. And then she walked in and it's like, Oh, and here's our, Head medical

Brent: CMO or whatever.

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. So not on him. Um, can we talk about the bad guys for a sec? Or did you have more about what you wanted to go through

Jeff: No, that's good.

Brent: Okay. So the drock, the drock, correct me if I'm wrong. This is what we got the first time we met the drock only not blurry.

Jeff: Yeah

Brent: Like it's the, it's the outside encounter suit or whatever that they

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: Only they weren't blurry. Like we could see them.

Jeff: Yeah, it's uh, it's trying I felt like I think I made the comment somewhere of like it's trying to make right a very big wrong being like no No, it's fine. They just wear this helmet like when they're out doing stuff. It's fine

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: they were hardcore there must have been like 70 of them on that ship.

There's like an endless amount But what's cool with that helmet thing, throw a helmet on an extra, run them in. Like they've made it really easy from a production standpoint. That was brilliant. Look, I don't like the look of it, but I get it.

Brent: Right. Right. Um, I will say though, when they took their helmet off, And we were just kind of looking at them more so than like, and I'm talking like the Wayne Alexander drop that we got in late season five and

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: I really, Oh, Jeff, Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna burn it. They were giving me such hardcore Jim Hadar vibes with the way their makeup was.

They looked so Jim Hadar to me, you know, um,

Jeff: Yeah. The, the shape and everything

Brent: our three bud.

Jeff: it

Brent: That's our three. So, uh, But let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, though. Do you feel watching the Drock here versus what we got in season five? Specifically, do you feel that we lost a little bit of the, the mystery and the, the, the, the, the threat by just seeing a gaggle of soldiers of them running around doing stuff?

Jeff: I do it. Um, and that, and even LaShawn, LaShawn, who I think is the, the, the head guy that they, they captured, their prisoner of war. Like they did they started to feel like I Jim had ours are really good comparison But they just felt like generic bad guy all of a sudden and they gave him lines to try and make it seem Mysterious when there is no earth.

Who will you be? It didn't make any sense and I felt like I don't know it definitely and I brought this up in a call to arms last week also where it's like The drop coming out five years into this thing and making this full frontal attack kind of undercuts the whole threat of who they were because they were supposed to be this hidden mystery thing.

Brent: right,

Jeff: And it's like, Hey, we're just bad guys.

Brent: Which I mean, you know, we can't talk about it right now, but we have both seen You know big mysterious bad guys that frankly once we got to know them a little better lost their baddiness you know um so whatever um All right. Uh last thing that I have as far as the show proper jeff You Um, and I feel like we have to talk about it because we hit it so hard in call to arms.

How'd you feel about the score on this one?

Jeff: It was a step in the right direction.

Brent: it was.

Jeff: Yeah. They still did the whole, um, mute all the dialogue and just have music thing, which doesn't work in this context, but that was definitely better. Yeah.

Brent: hmm. Yeah, I, it, I said the score is weird. And it felt like it was getting in the way of the show. But it was better. Than

Jeff: wasn't, it wasn't always in the way of the show. It would occasionally get in the way. Whereas in call to arms, it was just like, Oh, I think one of my most important notes that we need to talk about, they didn't have a, the com badge thing. The, the, the. The links on their hands. They just wore bracelets.

Brent: They didn't have these things? Mm hmm.

Jeff: Exactly. Yeah,

Brent: Sorry for our audio listening folks out there, not our YouTube folks. Brent just held up a prop replica of the hand communicators that they were on the back of their hands in Babylon 5. A nice little gift from our good friend Wash. Thank you, Wash. You're amazing. It sits right here on my desk.

I have it right here all the time. Mm

Jeff: already. And they moved the thing that looks more like a Nike fuel band from like 15 years ago when those things were a thing. But I noticed that and I was like, Oh, look at that. It's pretty smart. Pretty smart.

Brent: All right, Jeff, unless you got anything else, I think we've banned, uh, this has gone by fast. Uh, we've reached that part of the show where we try to boil this all down and see if this episode is hiding anything within it. Can we talk just a little bit about how we're going to make a change here? We're not going to try to like, we're not going to try to like tell you, you know, get into the

Jeff: not going to

Brent: of JMS.

And say, here's what he meant to do. And what this is just going to be what you and I found what stood out to us. And we're not really going to rate it anymore. The whole white star Delta is all that kind of stuff. We're going to let that go for now. Um, we're just going to hang out and do that. We are still going to rate the upper rank, the episode.

We're still gonna do that. But Jeff, I'm going to ask you, um, you know, the litmus test we use across the board, although this is not, can this is not complete or definitive. Is it, does it hold up a mirror to society? Give us hope that we can be better in the future. Tell us how we can be better human beings to one another.

What you got, what stood out to you in this particular episode?

Jeff: you know, when I watched this the first time I was like, wow, there's really no message here. It's just a really great episode that shows you cool things or whatever. But the second time I watched it, I noticed a theme and it was really carried by Gideon through the whole thing. And that theme was loyalty, maybe duty as well, but like loyalty was a big thing.

He didn't accept the assignment to Excalibur because it would advance his career. Like we saw back in, in the beginning. One of the like we saw that was Sheridan. Hey, we're gonna sign you to be the XO of this ship It'd be really good for your career and he's like, yeah No, I'd care about that. I'm loyal to this guy and this crew Gideon was kind of the same thing I'm like, well, you know, I got a good team right now and that's where it really trickled down was his team He accepts the assignment because he's loyal to earth force and earth and wants to help people Then he immediately stands up for his team and his crew and it's like do I get to pick my people?

You I will only do this if I get my XO and stands up for him. Like he just shows a lot of loyalty. No, even see it again in a weird way, uh, near the end with Galen. There's some bond between Gideon and Galen where he just kind of trusts him, you know, and, and interestingly, when Galen asked him who he trusts, he didn't say you.

But the fact that like he talked to him when he was in the air He didn't question him when he showed up and forced lightning to the drach When he came to his campfire like that shows a really high level of trust and loyalty So, um, yeah, I think that's that's the biggest thing. I got out of this one.

Did you Find anything else

Brent: Yeah, I got a couple. Um, I loved this line. I think this was Gideon who said it. Um, because I did. I didn't put down the context. I think this was Gideon talking to Mathison. But here's the line. It says, you know what causes most problems? Ambiguity. He's like, but I knew with you. So that wasn't a problem. And I just thought, man, that's such a great truth.

I don't know if it's a message as much as it is a truth. It really is. What causes so many problems is ambiguity. When you, at least when you know something, you know, the devil, you know, versus the devil, you don't. At least if I know it, I can anticipate it. You know, Alexander Hamilton, at least in the play, I don't know in route real life, but at least in the play, he's like, listen, I'll go with this guy who is my who I've never agreed with once.

But at least I know what he's about this guy over here I don't know anything about and I can't I can't run with that and and I respect that Um, I thought the question the drock had was really good When your world is gone, who will you support? Who will you be? um, and I I that's a great question introspective question to ask When, when all of this stuff that you're attached to is gone, who are you?

What are you about? What's really here? Are you, I've seen so many guys, um, who. And not, and not just guys, but girls as well. People in the at home parent world, um,

Jeff: Oh, yeah.

Brent: that they place their identity or people who have transitioned from a career to an at home parent role. And they place their identity in their job.

Yeah. This goes back to that question of identity. They, when that's gone, who are you going to be when, when these things, which you use to define yourself, what are you, that's a great question to ask. Jeff, I remember a time. Very long time ago. Now you, you've met me. A few people have met me. Uh, if you've seen the videos, I'm not a small dude.

I remember I was at a camp one time years ago. I don't know if I've ever told this story before. I was at a camp one time years ago and I was, uh, I was, I was counseling like the oldest group of kids who were kind of like serving and helping all the younger group of kids that were there. And, uh, we got to do a lot of special stuff as a group.

But one of the things that this camp had was a zip line.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: And have I told you this?

Jeff: You, yeah. You, you shared it on this podcast

Brent: Have it. Well, I'm going to share it again because you know what? Every show is somebody's first show. Um, but anyway, long story short, they got me to go down this zip line. I was freaked out of my gourd because I'm like, that is not holding my fat butt up there.

It's not doing it. And, and even like the camp director, he was like, no, it's fine. He's like, those clips are going to hold 10, 000 pounds. You don't weigh 10, 000 pounds. You're fine. The harness is going to hold you. We send a car down that zipline every summer just to check it out. I don't know if he was telling the truth or not, but whatever, like it can hold you go.

And I was like, I was still, I was so freaked out until I came to one thought as I was standing there on the platform about to just poop my pants. Let's say this thing breaks, let's say the worst happens. Let's say I fall down, not dead. Let's say I break my neck and now I'm a paraplegic for the rest of my life. What does that change about me?

Jeff: Who you

Brent: What does that change about who I am? And you know what the answer was? Nothing. All right. If I die, that's probably the worst case scenario, but at least I'm done. I don't gotta worry about it. But you know, I feel bad for those kids having to watch that, you know, but you know, as far as I was concerned, what would change?

Nothing would change about me. Right. When your world is gone, who will support you and who will you be, you know, JMS? Um, that's a question. It's a great introspective thing to be. And ultimately where I found this and what I loved about this, I saw one of our friends sent me a video of JMS. I want to say it was like at a comic con.

Oh, Oh, he was accepting a Hugo award. I want to say it was,

Jeff: Yeah. I remember the video. He said,

Brent: was, and he gets up there and he says, I wanted to create a show that asked these core questions. Who are you? What do you want? Where are you going? Who do you serve? And who do you trust? These are the questions this show is tackling. They asked every single one of these shows in the intro to the show.

I'm sorry. They asked every single one of these questions in the intro to the show. They asked them throughout the course of the show and they asked them at the end. Who are you? What do you want? And where are you going? Those are three very familiar questions. We're familiar with now as Babylon five folk, adding into that, who do you serve and who do you trust?

Phenomenal set of questions that truly, if I were to sit back and go, well, what's this about, that's what this is about, but I just, a great, again, all sets of interest sets of questions. So I love them. Are they messages? I don't know if they're messages as much as just. Chew on this.

Jeff: Think about it. Yeah. We talked a lot about the, who are you thing and back in river of souls. And we've talked about it throughout the run of Babylon five proper as well. It really is such a core question to the entire franchise. And I love how you just kind of put it out there. Like there it was. So, yeah, this.

A lot of action, a lot of great story and like some cool, uh, especially planting the seeds for some really cool messages to, to really bloom throughout the half of the season we're going to get of this. And yes, I'm a little bitter about that. Well, Brent. I got to talk about the messages. You had some as well. You get the fun part here though, because we here on Babylon five for the first time, we're creating the 100 percent accurate, immutable, objectively correct ranking of crusade. This is gonna be a tough one for you this week, buddy. You have to rank war zone.

Our current top five is blank. So where do you put wars?

Brent: I'm gonna have to think about this one for quite a while, Jeff. No, this is our number one episode. And you know what? I hope it doesn't stay here very long. Not because I didn't like this episode, but because I'm so hopeful for what this series is going to be.

Jeff: it can be so great.

Brent: obviously for right now, this is our number one episode, and I'm glad for it to be number one and not knock it down automatically.

Cause it was awful.

Jeff: Start with number one at number 22 and there's only 13 episodes.

Brent: We would do that. There's a handful of episodes. We would do that for, Let's hear what the long dark I think would be one of them,

Jeff: That's very high on the list.

Brent: right?

Jeff: Well, that's it for war zone. We did it. We wrapped it up next week Now viewing order is a big deal with this show and so we're gonna watch it. That's what's gonna happen, right? and so I'm going to tell you what's next and all of you watching and listening are going to go, uh, I don't agree with you or yeah, that's right.

And cool. We're just going to watch it. So next week.

Brent: it folks. Sorry.

Jeff: Next week, we're going to watch the long road for the very first time. The long road. Are we, are we watching something different?

Brent: No, no, just, I just talked about the long dark. I like, wait, did we do this one already?

Jeff: I was like, we came up with a list, right? I did that and doing the right one.

Brent: Right.

Jeff: So next week we're watching the long road for the very first time.

We've never seen these. We don't know anything about them. We haven't read synopses or anything. And we like to guess what they're going to be about. Brent, what do you think the long road's going to be?

Brent: All right. So we've had the long dark. We've had the long nights. And now we've got the long road. There's a piece of me that wants these three to all connect. I got to tell you, but I don't I yeah, I don't think that's the case at all. I think this one's fairly literal. They're going to be going through a section of space because this is a spaceship show not a station show.

They're going to be going through a section of space. That's nicknamed the long road. It's dangerous. It's a tricky place to get through, but to get to where they need to, to help them find this cure, they're going to have to take this road regardless. And that's what the episode is about. So all the stuff they get into as they're going down the long road.

Jeff: Okay.

Brent: How about you?

Jeff: I think this is going to be more of a plot heavy episode talking about the plague itself and the long road that it's going to take. Okay. To find that cure. So this is going to involve the doctor, some of the scientists get into the nuts and bolts, and then it's also going to be about like, well, how do we chart our next course?

And what's the way we, so it's going to be about the long road to a cure. And Brent, we're going to find out about that right here. Next week. Thank you all here so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Leave us a rating and a review, do all that cool stuff. We're going to rereading reviews here at least for a while. So get them in.

And, uh, if you really want to help us out, which we would appreciate so much, just share. Share this show. What a great time. How many Babylon 5 fans out there have never watched Crusade? I know there's got to be a good chunk of them, and you might know one. Share this show with them so they can join us on what our earlier rating said was, uh, our virgin voyage through, uh Through crusade.

So until next time, we're going to go ahead and get out of here. Uh, and, uh, yeah, this has been fantastic. Thanks so

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Oh, shoot. I thought we were actually going to get out of here with a thing. What's up, man?

Brent: Hey, Jeff,

Jeff: Yeah. What's up? Uh,

Brent: what do you want?

Jeff: what?

Brent: What do you want? Where are you going?

Jeff: All right. Technomage.