A Rabbi and a Boxer walk onto a space station. The Boxer turns to the Rabbi and asks if they’ve met before. The Rabbi responds, “Unless you used to be an alcoholic priest, I doubt it.” Welcome my friends. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.
Spoilers ahead.
1. Memory’s a Tricky Thing
You know, I distinctly remember this episode being a lot better. At the very least, I thought the A and B plots were swapped around. This is one of those times that, despite loving this show and having a personal connection to one of the narratives, I found myself checking out a lot. Despite the action and the pathos, it’s a slow episode and the Mu’tai just isn’t that interesting. Compared with last week, which was filled with all sorts of twists and turns and intriguing events, this one is straightforward and kind of dull.
The plot points for the fight are very standard and since it takes up much of the episode, it drags the whole thing down. The same goes for the Ivonova & Rabbi scenes which should be interesting but end up coming across as flat. It’s a shame because Ivanova’s attempts to process grief on her own throughout the episode would have made for some strong moments instead of being relegated to small snippets of her ping ponging between full on grief and a stoic façade that never quite feels fake enough.
2. Plotz in Reverse
One aspect of this episode I like is that we get to learn a little bit more about Ivanova, both in personality and in history. We know more about her father through the Rabbi and more about why the two had a falling out. It also makes the scene from many episodes ago more powerful. Something I failed to comment on during that scene was how that arc is beginning at the end of the traditional TV reconciliation so to have it begin there was, itself, a strange moment.
“TKO” shows, also, that while there may have been some reconciliation near the end, it was far from all that was needed for Ivanova. She needed to not only grieve but also to recast her father in her mind.
3. Jew-ish
I am surprised I made this one of my topics but here I am. While watching “TKO,” in between the fights, I got the feeling that something was off about the B-plot. Ivanova’s Judaism was never a big part of who she is in the show but still, something was missing from the interactions between her and the Rabbi. Most of it comes down to the relegation of this plotline to the background, as it forces Ivanova to interact with only the Rabbi and, a little bit, with Sinclair. She isn’t given the opportunity to vocalize her thoughts, discuss or to process with multiple characters the grief.
Additionally, we never get more about HER relationship to her Judaism. It’s all wrapped up in her father’s death instead of in her life and that seems to be the only connection her Judaism takes. She’s obviously knowledgeable in the practices so that should bleed into the everyday a bit more, even if she doesn’t practice it.
4. E-York
This name cracks me up to no end. Hearing the crowd chanting it made it even better. Unfortunately, that’s probably the only part of the whole A-plot that kept my attention. Babylon 5 has never been very good at portraying hand to hand fighting; it always comes off as stilted or overly telegraphed in that early Star Trek kind of way. Thus, when you have a plot completely revolving around hand to hand fighting, you’ve gotta find a way to keep it engaging and tense.
The stakes of the fight certainly do that but the actual staging of the scene. . .eh, not so much. The crowd’s cheers are lackluster, the energy in their actions are subdued and the tension of the fight just isn’t there. Much of that has to do with the alien make-up. It’s hard to get super expressive and I can’t fault the show for it. The make-up is consistently fantastic for all the different aliens and the work that must’ve gone into putting it onto everyone, every day. . .Kudos all around. Just a shame that it had to come at the expense of the energy in the episode.
Continued below5. Harlan Ellison
A small point but I found it funny how Ivanova was reading one of Harlan Ellison’s books. Ellison is credited each episode with being a creative consultant so the fact that he also technically exists in this universe is fun. I wonder if he got to pick which book she was reading. Also, she was laughing? From what little Ellison I know (mostly, “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”), that seems a bit odd.
That about does it for now. Join me again next week for the search for the Holy Grail, the return of Lennier, and, possibly, some answers on the station that wraps humans and aliens in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night. This is Elias. Signing out.
Best Line of the Night:
Smith: “I heard stuff about you too.”
Garibaldi: “You believe it?”
Smith: “Hell yeah.”
