Television 

Five Thoughts on Babylon 5‘s “Z’Ha’Dum”

By | November 5th, 2020
Posted in Television | % Comments

22 weeks ago, peace became an impossibility. Against the backdrop of fast moving implementation of authoritarianism and fascism, there was little hope it could be stopped. The universe teetered on the edge of war and it was only a matter of time until it arrived. All that could be done was to prepare. 22 weeks later, we have seen the fruit of their preparation. 22 weeks later, things look more dire than ever. 22 weeks later, we know they can be hurt but there is still a long way to go.

An idea cannot be killed so easily. This is both disconcerting and a comfort.

Welcome my friends. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2260. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

Spoilers ahead.

1. Who Am I?

Paying off last week’s killer cliffhanger, it’s fitting that the episode opens with a pseudo-“last time on. . .,” putting the focus on Delenn’s thoughts prior to Anna’s sudden arrival. This whole scene was highly suss and I appreciate that JMS and even Anna’s actress don’t try to dress it up as anything but. This might be my genre-savviness, though. I wonder if people were actually taken in by Anna’s return or if they knew from the get go she was hiding something.

I mean, come on. Her vague plays at pitting Delenn & John against each other? Her cageiness about why she never returned, where she was, what she was doing, etc? Her utter insistence that he come back to Z’Ha’Dum to see what the Shadows are “really” like? And this is all before even getting the firm proof that there’s a new organ in her head or something. It’s very suspicious and Sheridan would have to be an idiot to just take her at her word.

Nothing suspicious here. Nope. Nope. Not a thing. (Also, I didn't notice the names at the bottom at first. Nice touch SFX department!)

Thankfully, Babylon 5 doesn’t sacrifice its characters’ sense for the sake of cheap drama. It does, however, allow things to remain ambiguous as to what Sheridan is thinking. It’s a good choice to let us sit in the ambiguity, as it reflects his own uncertainty. He doesn’t know what to do and whether or not to let himself be taken in. The signs are all there that this is a set-up but that’s the beauty of the trap: it’s impossible to completely resist. What a great way to throw a wrench in things and force Sheridan to Z’Ha’Dum.

Moreover, it refuses to sacrifice the character of Anna for an easy retcon. It would have been easy to say, oh yeah, Anna joined the Shadows but she was kept in reserve just in case, but that would go against the character built for her. Maybe the argument would be that she was seduced by the tech or the promises but as was made clear, she had a firm sense of right and wrong and, as we see later in the episode, the true intentions of the Shadows are barely hidden. Thus, her presence here is a tragedy because it is no longer Anna. She did die on Z’Ha’Dum, refusing to help them, and now they are puppeting her to say whatever they want her to.

There’s a metaphor for something in there. But it’s too sickening for me to dwell on it much longer.

2. Who Do You Think I Am?

I also loved the way JMS fractures and repairs the relationship between Sheridan & Delenn. Anna’s return is painful for him and for Delenn. She says things that are meant to hurt and to injure the relationship between Delenn & Sheridan. It should be infuriating, as this kind of plot development usually is, but instead it plays as presented: tragic and gut wrenching. Sheridan’s reactions to her return and her poisoned words are both justified and not. He feels manipulated, which he was, and he feels like he was robbed of his agency (funny, considering this is what literally happened to Anna.) These are not necessarily true, and deep down he knows it. He visibly struggles with this conflict and that struggle fuels the hurt he feels.

Continued below

My heart absolutely broke at this scene

Delenn, too, struggles with this revelation and the question of what she would have done had Anna truly been alive this whole time. Clearly it’s suspect, and they both know Anna would never have willingly joined the Shadows, especially since if she had, she would’ve shown up much earlier, but just because you know something suspicious doesn’t mean the ramifications and questions don’t affect you.

Delenn loves Sheridan. Sheridan loves Delenn and loved Anna. But what the two don’t know is if that past tense is true or a convenient lie they told themselves. By the end, we know the answer but this question, hanging over the episode, provides the perfect emotional center to an already chock-full episode. Painful to watch but damn if that wasn’t a good thing.

3. What Do You Take Me For?

Let me get this out of the way: Sheridan can be a grade-A idiot. He’s many great things but when it comes to time travel and, clearly, The Classics, he is sorely lacking. If he had read Oedipus Rex he’d know that the only surefire way to make sure a prophecy comes true is to do the most extreme thing he can think of to avert it. Like, dude, when future Delenn says “Don’t got to Z’Ha’Dum, you never return,” DON’T GO TO FUCKING Z’HA’DUM. It doesn’t mean, “Oh, clearly I listen to the warning and thus I don’t go and so this future where I went happens?”

Bruh. BRUH. If you don’t go, then you NEVER GO and the future is a different one where you NEVER GO. Bruh! Your train of thought, it physically hurts me.

Am I the only one baffled by his approach? Not JMS writing this explanation because the whole thing completely tracks with Sheridan’s personality but why Sheridan would make this garbage leap? I mean, it’s possible I’m misunderstanding his explanation. If so, let me know in the comments.

4. What Do You Want?

For a finale to a season focused on preparation for a war, there is surprisingly little in the way of a battle. Considering that was accomplished last week, it shouldn’t have surprised me, however. Babylon 5’s strengths have always been in these smaller episodes too. The diplomatic negotiations, the personal maneuvers, these are the things that make the show special and it’s fitting, therefore, that the third season ends not on a huge space battle but instead on the smaller battle of ideas and ideologies.

To accomplish this, JMS enlists the help of Ed Wasser (Morden,) Melissa Gilbert (Anna,) & Jeff Corey (Justin.) You all know our good friend Mr. Morden and his perfectly cast actor Ed Wasser but for those who don’t recognize Jeff Corey & Melissa Gilbert, they’re both long-time character actors. Or, well, Jeff Corey is. He was even blacklisted back in the 50s. Melissa Gilbert is best known for her role as Laura Ingalls Wilder in Little House on the Prairie, but superhero fans might know her as the voice of Barbara Gorden/Batgirl from Batman: The Animated Series. Wild, right?!

Even Melissa is blown away by this revelation

These three are to act, essentially, as the friendly faces to lure Sheridan in. I love the scene they’re in, even if Corey’s acting feels a little stilted, although that may have been on purpose because it gives Justin the air of someone who’s not used to pitching an idea. Each time Morden or Anna takes over, the rhythm of the pitch changes and it’s clear they’re trying to shore his ideas up or to tackle it from a different angle to convince Sheridan to join them.

The Shadows know the threat he poses, not because he’s special or ultra powerful or whatever, but instead because of what he represents and what he has managed to build with others. I love this awareness that the “great men” approach to history isn’t true without discounting the power that the right person at the right place at the right time can have.

Sheridan is not a representation of a “Chosen One” narrative, where losing or capturing him destroys the possibility of success for our heroes forever, but instead is one representation of an idea. He succeeds because he embodies that idea but another could have filled his place and, if he were to leave, another will. . .but get him to change sides and all those traits are put to work for a different idea. Make the right arguments and, should Sheridan change sides, it would break morale, convince some to change, and destroy the precarious alliance he was helping to hold together.

Continued below

Unfortunately for them, the arguments they have are utterly abhorrent.

Flavors of eugenics and pure social darwinism are peppered throughout, with a healthy dose of “those who do not join become grist for the mill” added in for good measure. While the argument begins seductively enough thanks to talk of balance, and of balance broken, and the promise that what you always thought was true was in fact a lie used to control, peel away the surface and it becomes clear that it’s all hogwash. They’re excuses used to achieve a different end and to make the disgusting a little more palatable. It is a twisting of reality, to obfuscate the horrific actions of the past.

Control, with the Shadows at the top, sits at the heart of it all and no amount of window dressing can change that.

5. Where Do We Go From Here?

In the first few bits of the episode, JMS connected the disappearance of Anna to the events of “Messages from Earth.” It’s one of the many small touches he gives that really made this episode feel grand and a long time coming, despite very little actually happening. Sure, there’s constant teasing of a destroyed Babylon 5, a future which I believe was averted thanks to the actions taken in “War Without End, Part 2”, to the almost battle at the end of the episode, but the majority of the events in the episode were building to Sheridan’s last stand on Z’Ha’Dum. The C-plot was a red-herring (kinda), the B-plot directly built into the A-plot (Delenn & John’s romance being a subset of John & Anna journey to Z’Ha’Dum.)

What I mean by this is, what a way to end a season, huh?

The true midpoint ending, with our protagonists suffering a great loss, not necessarily at rock bottom but almost certainly worse off than they were at the start of the season. They achieved a great victory but how temporary and at what cost remains to be seen. Garibaldi has been captured by the Shadows, Sheridan is (presumably) dead — Ghost Kosh telling him to jump makes me think this is going to be some “Empire Strikes Back” hole logic — and the White Star is destroyed. The station is mourning and damnit Straczynski, how dare you use Ivanova’s latent telepathy to make me cry!

Me too, Delenn. Me too.

If this were on a normal network, the wait between episodes would be excruciating but because PTEN was weird, season 4 actually aired the next week in the United States, their big break being between “War Without End, Part 2”, and “Walkabout”. Were this not the case, I would have tons more praise for the bold choice, to have the death of the principal character be left in limbo for an entire season. I still do have tons of praise for the show however. Season 3 was an absolute blast from start to finish. Dramatic, tense, funny, engrossing, and thought-provoking, it’s clear that Season 3 was where JMS and the whole crew hit their stride. It’s no small feat to have a season this strong, and it’s even more impressive that the quality did not slip one iota after JMS wrote 22 scripts in a row (or more, if counting the end of season 2.)

We’ll have to see if he can keep this up next summer.

Oh! And before I forget, this episode was also directed by none other than Adam Nemoy. You might not know who he is but you almost certainly know his father, Leonard.

That about does it for now. Thank you all for joining me on another year trekking through this grand, glorious, sometimes ridiculous and many times troublingly prescient show. It’s been a hell of a ride and a far more difficult one since I had never seen these episodes before. Thank you for the comments left on past reviews, even if I didn’t respond directly, I did read them.

Two more seasons to go. I wonder what is on the horizon.

Stay safe, stay well, fuck fascism, and keep punching Nazis. Thank you again and, G-d willing, I will see you again next summer for season four on the station that, in the year of the Shadow War, became something greater.

Continued below

This is Elias. Signing out.

Best Lines of the Night:

G’Kar: “It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly. .. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments .. of revelation. This had the feeling of both.

G’Quan wrote: ‘There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way.’ The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.”


//TAGS | 2020 Summer TV Binge | Babylon 5

Elias Rosner

Elias is a lover of stories who, when he isn't writing reviews for Mulitversity, is hiding in the stacks of his library. Co-host of Make Mine Multiversity, a Marvel podcast, after winning the no-prize from the former hosts, co-editor of The Webcomics Weekly, and writer of the Worthy column, he can be found on Twitter (for mostly comics stuff) here and has finally updated his profile photo again.

EMAIL | ARTICLES


  • MoviesReviews
    Babylon 5: The Road Home

    By | Aug 25, 2023 | Movies, Reviews

    I was there, when Babylon 5 first came to streaming. I was there, when Babylon 5 was remastered. I was there for all five seasons of the station that wraps humans and aliens in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night. I was there at the dawn of the new age, traveling The Road Home.

    MORE »
    Television
    Five Thoughts on Babylon 5: The Gathering

    By | Mar 1, 2023 | Television

    30 years ago (give or take,) the pilot for a science fiction show aired that changed the way TV operated. Building upon and strengthening the idea of Star Trek’s five-year mission, this show proved that sci-fi TV could be something grander than an episodic adventure. It all began in the Earth year 2257 with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. This is its story.

    MORE »

    -->