Latest / LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age / #1 – Nothing's the Same Anymore (CHRYSALIS)

Transcript

#1 – Nothing's the Same Anymore (CHRYSALIS) · LAST BEST HOPE: A Babylon 5 Podcast for Our Uncertain Age

• 0:00
  JOSH: Foreign. Welcome to Last Best Hope, a podcast where we discuss, make sense of, and maybe figure out how to respond and deal with what's happening in the world through the lens of one of our favorite shows of all time, Babylon 5. I'm Josh, and joining me in this long twilight struggle is my co host.
• 0:22
  JOHN: Hey, everyone. I'm John. And don't say glad to be here, but I'm glad we're here to do this.
• 0:28
  JOSH: Yeah, well said. So basically, John, how did we. How did we come to do this podcast?
• 0:36
  JOHN: You know, I think we've had so many discussions over the years just going back and forth about the world we live in and how we thought Babylon 5 applies in so many different ways. And now it's just really boldly in our face that there were some really interesting notions and storylines and concepts in the show that are really helpful and useful for exploring what we're going through now. Even if it's not a one for one comparison, the show is brilliantly applicable to the world we live in. It's like they wrote, knowing human nature and where we might end up as we progress into the future. And I think there's a lot to learn from the stories of that show.
• 1:14
  JOSH: Absolutely. Yeah. So basically what we have in mind is not necessarily a Rewatch podcast, but we are going to try and choose one episode or maybe a series of episodes for every discussion to kind of define the scope of discussion. And for various reasons, I thought of starting out with Chrysalis, the season one finale, which does not necessarily have the in your face things like the rise of a dictatorship, but it does feel like this is where the ground shifts and you're set on the collision course with history. It just seemed like a good place to start. In particular, those two lines. Nothing's the same anymore from Commander Sinclair. And so it begins from Kosh.
• 2:01
  JOHN: Yeah, I think that's a great choice for an episode. It really, it begins, it. It's not hitting you in the head too hard until it is towards the end. So as the theme of this podcast is how. How does Babylon 5, and in particular what happens in the show with the Earth alliance, how does it mirror in some ways what's happening now? How does President Clark's rise parallel to other authoritarian, potential authoritarian trends that we've seen in our own history and maybe seeing in our world today? This. This episode gives you a taste of. Of almost, you know, a lot of those things as an intro before we go into season two. So I'm excited to talk about it.
• 2:44
  JOSH: Yeah, you know Rewatching Chrysalis, there's the macro story of what's happening in the. Not geopolitical. The galactic poli. I'm going to just say geopolitical for. For lack. For lack of a better term.
• 2:58
  JOHN: Yeah, I don't know a good word for it.
• 2:59
  JOSH: Yeah. But like the larger macro political story, the goings on between governments and. And then also the very personal human story, like, the way that the show in general, but this episode specifically really weaves the political and the personal together, is really masterful. Like, we'll get to this in a little. But Garibaldi, in this episode, what he's doing as a function of plot, but then what ends up happening to him, the way that he's wounded, not just literally, but also psychologically as a result of this larger conspiracy that sets all of this in motion for the rest of the show, is really pretty amazing. And just all of the interpersonal stuff in the show, like in this episode in particular, you know, it reminded me. Jamis tells a story about how, you know, back in the 80s, he had two ideas for sci fi shows. One of them was a big sprawling show about empires rising and falling and, like, the wars that they fight and stuff. And then he had another idea for a show about the interpersonal relations between characters and what it was like to live life and coexist just in the confines of a space station or like a spacecraft. And then he says he was in the shower one day and he realized that it was the same story. And that's always the. The trick, because it's not just plot, it's not just the big stuff. It doesn't matter how cool it is conceptually, unless you're able to successfully marry it to personal stakes of characters that you care about. So the way that JMS is able to do that, you know, like they watched the assassination of President Santiago happen on tv, and we see the reactions of the characters. Like we see on Ivanova's face, she's about to start crying. And that's a character that we've never seen lose her cool in CNC like that. And I think that just demonstrates it's not about the bird's eye view of events. It's about seeing the effect that it has on the characters.
• 4:59
  JOHN: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:00
  JOSH: You know that line, nothing's the same anymore that Sinclair has. Like, you feel something has shifted for the character, but also for the world, for the viewer. You're like, I felt the shift, but I don't yet know exactly what it means. And that was actually the reason I wanted to discuss this specific episode at the beginning of this sort of podcast experiment, because I'm wondering, do you remember a moment, or maybe it wasn't just one moment, but what for you was that nothing's the same anymore moment?
• 5:33
  JOHN: I have to jump right in there with you because that was the moment. Now, before this, there was signs and portents. And while it wasn't related to Earth specifically, that was to destruction of Babylon 5 and a prophecy and how things might go wrong. It was the unsettling feeling that things aren't necessarily going to go well. Great challenges are ahead, and people will make the wrong decisions. That last part is the really important part for me because you see Londo Mollari at the very beginning, the genesis of his slide into darkness because he's tempted by power, the ability to save his own people. That showed me that we're not in the world that we had sort of come from with Star Trek. Which, and this is not in any way, this isn't comparison, this is just saying a frame of reference that we start in, which is a. A world where we're a little more idealistic. But also characters as written make the best decisions in the end. I'm not saying the 5.5 didn't ultimately end that way, but the journey is a hell of a lot harder and grimier. And seeing that there was a sensation of, oh, I'm going to be along for something where people I'm going to really. These characters that I'm going to really start caring about are going to make some really bad decisions. They're going to go down dark paths whether they want to or not. And then watching Chrysalis, that line. And I'll admit Sinclair was my. Was sort of my favorite, one of my favorite characters on the show. And I was very grateful that he got to come back as Valen. And then learning years and years later, the background information on Michael o', Hara, which was very sad, very poignant, really made me appreciate it even more. Sinclair, for some reason I related to him, He. He had this quiet. He wasn't emotionless. He was. He was compared well, he's though he was the wooden commander, certainly he wasn't super emotive. He was funny as hell. You know, he played pranks on Ivanava, if you remember liking when they switched the dinner and woke her up, you know, the breakfast. Excuse me. You know, he had these moments and he had a laugh and a smile to him, but it was this understated. He was the sort of classic old man as head of the ship mentality. And you sort of felt like you go to him with problems and that he was. And that he was wise. And then, of course, when you realize he has this traumatic background there was a lot of dimensionality to that character. But there was something comforting about Sinclair. But also he carried a sadness. He always carried a sadness with him. That's not something you typically get from other shows. And I'll say, I think that, you know, there's one Star Trek show in particular that I think very similar to this show also took that notion and just why, I wonder, said, well, it was done here in a very poignant way. He wasn't okay. He was trying his best. And then Chrysalis is so wonderful because there's that moment. And I have it in my mind whenever I'm thinking about relationships or dating and marriage. When he proposes and they're. They're in bathrobes, they're just hanging out. What. You know, And. And he. He starts rambling about, you know, we've been together all this time. You know, I don't know. And she's sort of like, all right, just. What are you trying to say? Has his back turned? All right. Turned on. Listen, do you want to get married or not? That was one of the most, like, perfect character moments for Commander Sinclair. Like, it was just such a great. That was I. I related to. Because I'm. I'm. I felt like I'm sort of like him a little bit quiet and withdrawn but also very engaged at the same time. But there's. But it's tension there. And then when he gets to that point after, you know, they've had this great New Year's dinner together was really, again, it was. It was Babylon 5 character moments. They're all having dinner together. It's sort of awkward. Ivanova gets to be the. The. The, you know, the maid of honor. But she's like, this is the first time I'm ever doing something like this. I don't know what to do. What do we do in the station? And it was just this. But they're. But they're all, like, smiling and laughing and drinking and having a good time realizing they're about to go in this, you know, amazing new direction. Garibaldi is all about it. And then the president and everybody's phases. Everybody breaks in that moment, realizing what. What this actually means. It wasn't just like, you know, one isolated, sad incident. This was a sea change. And so when he sat there and said, nothing's the same Anymore. I felt a loss, a real loss. And you're not even sure what you've lost yet. You just know that something is gone. And how I relate it to right now, what we're going through, or at least what a lot of us are going through. Not everyone is. You're not even sure what's going to happen yet. But you know that you've lost the future that you expected. You know, something's gone, something's gonna be different, something's gonna be a lot harder. And you're only. And you don't even know what to say about it. So that line, I've used it throughout my life. Nothing's that in any as that looked. Nothing's the same anymore. And it's not as simple as the words make it out to be. It means that nothing's the same anymore. Something. Something isn't gonna be there anymore. And you start a process sort of. Of grief. And that was that scene. He's sitting there in grief. They're all grieving at that point. And that's. I think that that being his sort of end of season one moment or close to it made it really hard to accept when I heard he wasn't coming back or saw that he wasn't back for season two. Now that said immediately, boots box won me over. There was. There really wasn't a question as to, oh, I can't get into the way the show has gone. Credit to JMS for literally building back trapdoors. He said in for every character in case something did happen with the actors. I think that's really, really brilliant. But I really would have loved to see how Sinclair handle this because he was grieving. And I think we're grieving right now for a future that we don't get to have, at least not the future we expected. And I think that's why people are very quiet right now out there. I mean, I know that there's a lot of hand wringing about what's, you know, what we think is happening, the barrage of news information every day. But if, you know, if you notice, people are generally a little bit quieter. And not just in activist circles. It's generally more quieter now because I think people are in shock. And that's what I've been distilling it down to is it's grief. And we're not even sure what we've lost. We just know we've lost something. And that was this moment. And then of course, the show gets to go on and say, here's what you've lost. Here's what happened. And I think that's where we could go sort of back to establishing the world. What was the world that season one started building, where we start? And I think that really started in the intro monologue of the show. You get. You get that battle on five. What I loved that they went. I consider it cheesy to do a whole, you know, voiceover monologue as an intro to your show. It's a very, like, 90s, 80s, 70s sort of TV show way of doing things. They don't do it as much anymore. And even Star Trek by that point, moved away from that. They didn't have. These are the voyages of the US Enterprise. They went to beautiful artistic space scenes. You know, I liked that this was sort of corny because they give you a lot of stuff in that intro. You. You immediately go in knowing what Babylon 5 is. It is. You know, it is this interstellar space station and all the different aliens coming together. And. And it's going to be a wild and wacky ride. You know that it's going to be something different, and it gets you excited for it. But season one is optimistic. It's very optimistic. And those intros change every season in line with where the story is going. And when you start the show, you. You sort of expect that, oh, it's going to be okay. Like, the station is there. They're building a better future through getting all the different major alien races together, the League of Non Aligned Worlds, that we're building a real good future here. And there'll be some bumps along the way.
• 13:54
  JOSH: It's that same mid-90s optimism. It's that same moment that we were in, the post Cold War moment when, you know, everything was great. Like, let's just sit down and do commerce and everything will be fine.
• 14:10
  JOHN: Yeah. What is it? The end of history, Francis?
• 14:12
  JOSH: Yeah, the end of history.
• 14:14
  JOHN: The end of history. And I don't think now, looking back on it, I don't think JMS bought it because certainly look at the episodes he wrote later when you get all the way. Oh, man, we can go all the way with that. To the deconstruction of falling stars. Very hard episode to watch. Ways. And amongst the best episodes ever written. I don't think he bought it. I don't think he bought that we're there, that that's it. I think that's why Babylon 5 was meant to be a contrast to a lot of the. It didn't lack optimism, but it was gritty.
• 14:48
  JOSH: Yeah. No, it. It wasn't. Pessimistic. It was optimistic, but sort of like Ghakar says in sometime in season four, after Nard has been freed. And I think Garibaldi, he's like, I heard you went looking for me. And because of that, they found you and your eye and all that. And Gar is like, no, no. What you showed me was that if you approach the universe with good intentions and an open heart, you will be rewarded. It just doesn't always happen the way you expect. Yes, right.
• 15:19
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 15:20
  JOSH: So I think what Babylon 5 is saying is that not all hope is lost, but getting there is going to cost something of you. There are a couple things that you said I was noticing. The opening scene of this episode is a Council chamber session. Jakara and Londo are screaming at each other. Sinclair is trying to mediate. And it really hit me. This show is really about international relations in governments, how they interact, how the systems that we have constructed to organize ourselves work, and where the failure points are in a way that, like, Star Trek is not about that.
• 16:04
  JOHN: It tells you what's happening, but it doesn't show you that.
• 16:07
  JOSH: Right, right. And that's not the focus. Like, you get a smattering of it. But it's only important insofar as it allows for the story to happen here on Babylon 5. Like, that is the story. What the show is trying to say is about that. Right. Which I thought was very interesting. And then immediately after that, the end of the teaser is when Petrov stumbles wounded to Garibaldi and says, they're going to kill him. They're going to kill. And then he dies. And then we cut to the opening credits. And it's so smart in retrospect, because the show is at a moment where TV was episodic and procedural, largely the way that jms, who was a writer on Murder, She Wrote, so he knows how these shows work. He knows. It's like, oh, it's like you set up the mystery in the first, you know, 90 seconds. Who's the killer? Who are they going to kill? Who are they going to kill? And kind of because of that, at no moment, as a viewer, even a sci fi savvy viewer who's seen every episode of Star Trek, you never for a second consider that they're not going to stop whoever it is from killing whoever it is. The thing that's so mind blowing about this show and this episode is that it's like, no, no, no, this is not going to go the way that you think. And actually, the rest of this series is about how it did not go that way. Even from like a meta textual standpoint, nothing's the same anymore. Like this show can do anything. It's doing something fundamentally different than what I thought it was doing.
• 17:31
  JOHN: So yeah, and that goes back to us as kids. We were like, this isn't what we thought it was going to be. And I know excitement, but it was, it really is. I tell people to this day about this show and I say, listen, it's 90s, it's the first use of CG. It's all these things. JMS and his autobiography talks about how, you know, he'd been writing for tv, but this was his first time running a show and he and largely the production crew were sort of thrown into the deep end not knowing. I mean it's a, it's both a miracle that ever got done. But I also love the idea that this got done with people who weren't just the totally experienced people and they were trying something totally new as a result. So the show itself was rough around the edges from that standpoint. But I tell people, you are, you're going to get the, one of the most amazing stories, layered stories and the payoffs and the thoughts you take away from it. And as we zero in here on how does it apply to, you know, what looks to be happening in our, in our society today? And not, and not arguing that it is 100% prescient, but that it is, they were taking notions that we do understand that are very deep and difficult and troublesome, weaving into a show and making it accessible. What is the, what is the slide to authoritarianism look like? We have a well worn textbook for that from authors that have written from this, particularly from the Second World War on. And it's not a grand mystery, it's not a, a random event. Well, it happens sometimes here and sometimes it doesn't. It's actually very identifiable there are, is that it's almost like a textbook. You can go down the list of things as this happens, this leads to this. And he wrote this show with all those things in mind. So we're getting something that wasn't, you know, and to be able to explore those notions of, you know, if you're doing episodically well, you have to cram that into 44 minutes. This, he had, you know, five, really four seasons for this story, you know, to, to explore that and that really allowed it to be fleshed out in a way. I wasn't, I definitely wasn't expecting it. Now looking back on it, I always Knew it was there. And that's when I was telling people watch the show said, you're going to get all these different facets, but we can go down this and follow almost every beat. And this episode started that with references to, you know, there is, you know, Midnight in the Firing Line and Death Walker definitely have references to these subtle beginnings of problems that you see in Earth Dome and the Earth alliance itself. But this episode took us full into that. I love that you bring up like the Murder She Wrote comparison because he sort of saved that show ratings wise and everything else. And that was very formulaic. You, you, you have the mystery introduced. You're right. And then, and then they find out who did it and, and sort of, you know, there's justice in the end. This ends a whole season with no justice, even at the. Again, so it's happening to Earth, But Malari, through Mr. Morden, ends up wiping out a Narn outpost and completely changing the, the, the intergalactic diplomatic setting. So this episode did it on all levels. And then down to the personal. The episode's name. What does Delenn choose to do? I mean, that's, that's just another, okay, everything is going to change. Nothing's going to be the same anymore. She's quite literally going to, to change. And that's, and that allows her to play a bigger role going forward in Earth politics. Controversial role as, as it becomes. This episode really did set us up unknown to the viewer yet that everything was going to change and everything was going to be really, really, really, really intense.
• 21:26
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, watching it again this morning, you know, obviously I've seen the entire series many times and it's been literal decades of living with this show. But it had been a while since I had sat down and watched Chrysalis and I was just blown away by how many stories were all intersecting with each other. You really felt like something important was going on, like everywhere. And knowing you haven't even seen the half of it yet. Something that struck me. Well, so, yeah, so like you said, so it's sort of going along the Murder She Wrote structure right up until Garibaldi shot in the back. That's where everything changes because he figures it out. He figures it out before it happens. So in a regular show, he's going to confront the guy Devereaux is his name, who already seems like not a very smart villain as two lackeys. All three of them kind of remind me of these, like, thugs in suits that Trump surrounds himself with. You know, like they think they are such big shot, important, you know, whatever, but they're actually not that smart. They are just willing to do what anyone smarter than them is unwilling to.
• 22:41
  JOHN: Do or more moral is unwilling to do. That's. Yeah, that's the real test. You know, who's, who's, who's, who's loyal and who is willing to do whatever you ask them to do. You're right. They're not impressive people. They're not, they're not really.
• 22:57
  JOSH: Not in the way that, like Morden is, for example.
• 23:01
  JOHN: I still, every, every time he comes on screen, I can't help but just, you get, I, I both smile and shiver at the same time because he's so good in that role. But you're right, there's something bigger there. He's not only a true believer, he became it. You know, we don't know exactly what happened to him and Zahadun, but he's, he, he's become a true believer and he's deploying the most advanced manipulation techniques available. You know, these guys, they're lackeys. But that's, but that's, but that's. The point here is that this has a story on the galactic level. And a lot of people who watch science fiction, we live on that level. The cool big story, Star wars, the Jedi versus Sith, it's always the big thing, which doesn't really relate to our personal lives. This brought it down and saying, listen, the ultimate Vill villains very often are not super powerful. They're not super smart, they're not super magical in some way. They're kind of average or they're good at one thing. They're good at wheeling and dealing, they're good at manipulating. But they're not gods, they're not heroes, they're not super villains. And that's a lot harder to wrap your head around because you have to accept that, oh, that's part of everyday life and that these people and, and I'll go into, you know, when I think of this and I, you know, I've been doing a lot of thinking about, you know, the different authoritarian regimes of the 20th century and this and most of them, and also, you know, pretty much certainly Germany is a key example, did not have these brilliant minds or impressive people at the top. They had people who were willing to do the job that the person at the top said, and they were just effective enough and ruthless enough to do it. But it wasn't, it wasn't a, it wasn't magic. It wasn't, you know, superhuman ability. It was just, you know, awful people. And that's the scarier. I think that's why it's so scary. Because you realize you don't need to be in a fantasy world. You don't need somebody who is beyond normal human existence to be doing this stuff. And that means it can happen any day. Means it can happen now. Because average people are doing things that are taking us down this path. And that's. And that's. And that's where the Earth Central and the Earth alliance story operates. Because none of those people are superhuman. When you deal with the generals, the senators all of them are so identifiable when we look in our world today.
• 25:40
  JOSH: I mean, even just look at President Clark himself. Like. Like, no, no, shame on the actor. But, like, he's not like a specimen. He's not intimidating. He's like a schlubby guy.
• 25:52
  JOHN: That was the brilliance. That was the brilliance of the casting and having him make only one appearance. And I think one or one or two other voice appearances was that you. You built. He was built up as this great villain in the following seasons. But you're only given the vision of him as, yeah, he's just a guy. He's just a guy. And he got into this. And this is where the whole episode starts but from the buildup of the season was laying it out is that he's so comparative to what's happening today because they make it clear Clark is the vp but he's not in lockstep with the moderate Earth alliance president. Would be Santiago, who is considered a moderate pro alien leader. He's advocating, you know, for a lot of openness with alien races, particularly Minbari after the war. Again, that great balantified intro refers to the war. And they don't give you exposition and a history lesson on it. You just know what happened. And the characters play it out as to how they think about it and deal with it. And they make it pretty clear. Vice President Clark has Earth first isolationist views. And there's a phrase, earth first. This is 1994. They're saying Earth First. It's not. We're not making this up. We're not saying. Trying to, you know, create false parallels to. Now. It's literally what that was written because that's the common genesis of authoritarianism is you start by saying, oh, we have to focus on our own people first.
• 27:20
  JOSH: And you even says that in this episode. He literally says that.
• 27:25
  JOHN: They did conveniently and deliberately use a visual on Earth Force One meant to look like the swearing in of lbj Though that was a good. A good nod to, you know, when something like this happens. But it was. It was, you know. You know that he's more isolationist. You're beginning to see this. And that is usually the first step towards, you know, getting. Getting. Getting the people to turn their views towards something that's a little more malleable for a strong man leader is to say, we have to focus on ourselves. We have to focus on ourselves. And then, yeah, it's just. It's just a classic technique. Remove. Remove through one means or another the person who pro. In this case, pro alien. Pro. Openness to others, openness to strangers and then use that very event that is the trauma of that loss, the trauma of President Santiago to capitalize upon that, to amplify people's fear and say, well, okay, now that we're going through this. This awful, traumatic moment of loss we have to turn inwards and take care of ourselves. And on paper, that doesn't sound irrational, but. But. But the show made it clear that's an alarm bell. Like, it's an alarm bell. And how many times have we heard that in our own lives? Well, you're going through something really difficult and traumatic time to turn inwards and just take care of our country, our community, our family. Can't worry about those other people. You have to take care of yourself. I'm not talking about the whole idea of put the. Put the air mask on yourself before your child. We're talking about cutting connections, becoming isolationist.
• 29:08
  JOSH: Londo says the same thing in season five but at the behest of the Drak who are trying to make the Centauri frightened and scared and isolated. Right. So when Londo becomes the emperor and I think Sheridan is there at his coronation, I don't remember exactly. Or like, shortly thereafter he offers to Londo the full resources of the Interstellar alliance to help them rebuild.
• 29:34
  JOHN: And.
• 29:34
  JOSH: And Londo says, no, we are closing ourselves off from the rest of the galaxy and we are on our own because that's all we need and we have to take care of ourselves. So, you know, hearing you say that, that sort of sentiment is like an alarm bell made me think of that which happens five years after this and in a whole other context. Because at that point, you know, who is pulling the strings in that situation? In this? You don't see it yet. The other interesting thing that I realized is when we were comparing and contrasting Morden to Devereaux and how, like, you know, Morden is sort of what's happening on the Grander galactic scale. Like things are shifting, I'm embarrassed to say, but for the first time in like 30 years, I guess I just realized that the Shadows are making multiple moves at the same time. It's not just the striking quadrant 37, they're also the ones behind the assassination plot. Well, not behind it, but they facilitated it for Clark.
• 30:30
  JOHN: Yeah, something that the humans are still doing and could do on their own, but they're helping tip the scales.
• 30:37
  JOSH: Exactly the same with how the Shadows helped Londo in the Centauri. He wants to do this. He's doing this. They are just offering their assistance to help him realize it. Like if the Shadows went to, you know, right wing conservatives and we're like, so you guys are marginalized, huh? You guys feel like you've lost the culture war? You know, you feel like you're becoming completely irrelevant, that you're going to go extinct? What if we could help you out? What do you want? And they would say exactly what Londo said. Londo, not only does he want Centauri pride to be great again, but he wants to be great again. This whole season. He's depressed and he's self destructive because he feels like he didn't get what was rightfully his. Right. And so in that sense, I mean, if we're like trying to map the real world onto the show, Londo is the rank and file Republicans who have voted for this. I think Clark is pretty clearly Trump, like a not very impressive facilitator, figurehead for the whole thing. But he's not the actual cancer. He's like the symptoms and I think.
• 31:45
  JOHN: The, the, the, you know, things, obviously we can map it out. I, I think that what you have, I mean, like, Clark is not literally Trump and he's also not the charismatic leader. Trump is a charismatic leader.
• 31:55
  JOSH: Right.
• 31:56
  JOHN: Which fits in with a strong idea, but that's where Londo is. And, and if you think about that notion of Londo felt that his dignity, his self worth, his sense of self had been greatly diminished. It was it. He, he was. Is it self destructive? At the White House Correspondents Dinner, I think it was 2012 is where Donald Trump attends and is roasted. Had a lot of, a lot of people theorize that, you know, from private conversations that that is where he basically decided to get involved with politics and later make a presidential run is because he, he had really no interest or it wasn't on his radar to do anything like that to, to run for office. Certainly not, you know, that would, that was sort of something that was beneath him. But they really, in that moment, you know, he doesn't know how to take a good ribbing, to be sure. But they also attacked him in a way that you can see. Okay, Depending on where somebody's coming from, psychologically, that can lead to a lot of resentment and a feeling of attack on self. When people live with that for a while, they. They lash out and they start following that standard playbook. I will make myself powerful. I will make myself great again. That's just make. Make Centauri prime great again. Londo is saying, I'm going to make myself great again. People will respect me. I don't think they're. One of the most dangerous kinds of human beings to encounter is somebody who is trying to regain that. That sense of respect. And. But they do it out of resentment. They have so much spite in them, and that's what this is. And, And Londo, that's why he. That's why he's so easily lured down this path. We don't. We don't have much of a backstory in Clark, and I don't think we needed it as. As viewers. But you imagine that in those positions, the people that followed him, certainly, they're. They're pretty spiteful. They're pretty. They feel disempowered. That's where Night Watch comes in. That'll be interesting to discuss later on in seasons two and three. But resentment is a powerful force, and Londo has a lot of it. The Narn also have a lot of it, but they are on the other side of the wheel. Initially, you think they're at the top, and then this immediately changes it to where the Narn go right back in the bottom of the wheel and the Centauri will end up back at the top. Which, again, is what you were saying. It's. Well, hey, cultural conservatives, you seem to have been losing this war about who you can hate, who you can limit the rights of, and who you can. I always clarify this very specifically. No one's freedom of speech was being abridged or impacted during even the height of wokeism or whatever you want to call it. I loathe that word because it doesn't describe anything accurate. It was accountability. In your community, you say something that is racist, homophobic, misogynistic, you were going to be called out. And. And in their minds, that was the same as being eliminated because they had lived their lives up to that point, being able to say anything they wanted without accountability. When you want to drop certain words, it's not saying we're going to put you in jail for using those words. You're going to have government sanction against you for using these words. Is that people going to say, hey, this jerk over here is saying some pretty awful stuff and they don't want to be held accountable. That's a grievance. And it's very easy to say, yeah, you lost. I can give you that pathway back. Just follow this playbook, just follow these instructions and you will get back there. Make people resent each other again. Again, America First, Earth First. Be suspicious of those others. And when they call you out on saying something, you know, make sure that you punch back as hard as you can when, when that happens. And you see that. You see that in the show where as the alien tensions increase, you know, particularly from Earth to, to, to, you know, other worlds like the Non Aligned Worlds, there's just a sort of implied notion that xenophobia is acceptable now. You know, it's something that goes on the dialogue of the show as we get into the second season. But that'll be more to explore then. What this sort of started off with is the subtle notions you put an isolationist into power. That moves on to just the silencing of dissension where it sort of begins slowly. This episode had, had isn, which is brilliant because it's really, it's, it's, it's like watching old school CNN turn into modern Fox News. You know, you just see, you just see it happen. So, so I mean it's very blunt. It's not, it's not a secret. And this show is meant to be a core storyline, but there's. The reporting on President Santiago is just, you know, there's, there's no challenging, there's no any. Hey, we're doing something seems to be afoot here. They just mentioned fact of the matter. Well, President Clark left, you know, to. Because he said he had a virus. This is going on and you're meant to say, oh yeah, they're not really. They haven't been taken over yet, but they're not. If the press is supposed to be the cop on the beat or the detective examining things, they weren't doing that. They weren't being critical. They didn't have their critical minds on in that moment. And our media is notorious for that in moments like that. 911 is the key example is that our media went to sleep that day to only talk in, in a way that would fit our grief. And from a business perspective, you can't blame them because anybody who was thinking critically at that point or talking critically would not have had the ratings they would have been lambasted on, you know, by the other networks. But isn't. Didn't mention anything. And it's, it's subtle but it's, but it's there. As for whether this goes on to bigger issues, like, I think you can definitely compare it to what happened after. See, you can go back to Caesar. You know, the intention by some people was to prevent a dictatorship, but what ended up was a, was a consolidation of power that was even more extreme by August. These are, you know, you have 911, you have the Reichstagfire, all these things. These aren't like, we don't have to do a lot of work to map them on because they're used as historical analogs. I don't think JMS shies away from that. He's not saying this is direct allegory. He is saying this is what happens with human beings. We're going to put that in this setting. And he doesn't have any shame about it, which is good. I was. I always think that some writers. Token does not. They bristle at the idea of allegory or comparison. I'm like, that's what storytelling is. You're retelling or different telling. But you're looking at something that's important to you and bringing that message out to the people. And that's literally what this is.
• 39:04
  JOSH: Yeah. You know, it's funny. There's a meme, it's supposed to be parody. It's from like some British sketch comedy show and there's like a buffoonish writer or something that's all self important. And he's being interviewed and he says subtext is for cowards. And I kind of agree. Sometimes I think you're trying to be subtle when you need to be screaming it from the rooftops. And something about B5 in particular. This was produced and came out in a time that things for a lot of people, not everybody, but things for a lot of people were going pretty good. I think there was a lot of hope and optimism about the future at the very least. And you know, when this show was on, I was a kid who became a teenager, very, you know, formative years. And I think strangely, this show and also Star Trek, I feel lucky to have watched them and grew up watching them because I feel like it inoculated me against a lot of things like, you know, you could, you could do worse than have your foundational texts for your personal philosophy and politics and everything be Star Trek and Babylon 5. I'm not necessarily recommending that for everybody, but you could do a lot worse. So, you know, and when I was in my teens and, you know, the show was firmly in the Earth Civil War arc, and toward the end of the show, when I revisited it, when I was in college for the first time and I rewatched the series on dvd, I was like, you know, maybe the show's a little too on the nose. Like, did we really need a show about how dictatorship is a bad thing and, like, how it happens? Haven't we already learned about all this in school? And then, you know, the wheel has turned, and I'm like, no, this needs to be reiterated for every generation, because when dictatorship and struggle against fascism recede from living memory, you become susceptible to it again. So you need stories like this so you're reminded so you can spot it when you see it happening. And through accidents of timing and being a nerdy Star Trek fan, I would watch anything that had a spaceship in it. You know, like, I do. I feel like I was inoculated, you know, in 2016, before the election, I wrote a blog post back when people still did that about how Trump seemed very similar to President Clark.
• 41:35
  JOHN: I remember that vaguely. I actually do.
• 41:38
  JOSH: And this was before he was president. And it's not because I have any particular insight or whatever. I mean, like, we all saw what was happening. Like, we were all thinking the same things. I think there was just that I don't want this to be happening. This can't happen. Here are all the reasons why it's probably not happening. The Chicken Little thing.
• 41:58
  JOHN: Yeah.
• 41:58
  JOSH: What? So that was, like, nine years ago. I stand by every word that I wrote. I wasn't wrong.
• 42:03
  JOHN: Not at all.
• 42:04
  JOSH: And it was plain for everyone to see. Nobody who was saying these things then was wrong.
• 42:12
  JOHN: It's. It's so interesting because that is. That is the. The part that makes you begin to doubt yourself is when people say, oh, well, that. That, A, A, that can't happen here, and B, you're overreacting. Or C, you are really misrepresenting this. The quote comes to mind that the price of liberty, the price of freedom, is eternal vigilance. And that's not to mean this, like, awful, aggressive concept. It's to mean that you have to be awake. Vigilance. You have to be watching for it every time. It doesn't actually go away. There's no permanent victory. And the moment that you think you are least vulnerable to it, you are likely most vulnerable to it. So, you know, when a show is a little more on the nose compared to trying to be subtle, well, that's the necessary story. It feels a little bit direct sometimes. And I think that's the historical. That's the problem with academia and historians in general right now is that the way they have represented The World War II era is as if it was a grand outlier. And I always. I use words that are almost mythical words because people think of the parties to that war as almost inhuman, demonic, like a supernatural force. As if it was in this context that the Shadows did everything. No, the reason this show was written this way is the Shadows don't do very much. They influence here and there. They nudge people at the most. So if you're saying there's some supernatural. The people who make the decisions to do the horrible things are everyday people who are not themselves the definition of evil. They're not demons. They're not. They're not just some, you know, some, like, concept of a different kind of human. They're just human. And that's the most uncomfortable story to tell, is that those things happened because regular people like you and I thought that was an acceptable thing to do because the context of the world they were living in, and that's the germans of the 1930s and 40s, they weren't somehow different than us and more. More evil. They were just human. That's the. That's where the phrase banality of evil comes from. It's basic. It's common. It's universal. You have to be watching for it. We're all susceptible to it. We're all susceptible to influences that will bring those worst instincts out of us. So you gotta tell those stories in very. Sometimes we will miss a subtext, or we'll say, that's not. Or even worse, subtext can sometimes let us off the hook. It can say, well, it is for those other people only. They would go down that road. And I very much think that those who've, you know, committed atrocities and war and everything else, they look back and say, well, we weren't the bad guys. You know, that. That's a human instinct. Babylon 5 was uncomfortable. It made you question those notions, and it made you question those very notions about the characters themselves. When, you know, all the way to season four, when this is, when. When the story, you know, reverses itself and Babylon 5 comes to free Earth. It's not a fantasy fairy tale ending. The people of Earth equally view Sheridan as a savior and as a traitor. They. They loathe him for what he did, that was one of the most uncomfortable parts of the show for me. And as a teenager, I hated it because I was like, he's my hero. He's the hero of the show. How can you put the hero of the show and say that half the people of Earth still want him punished or dead? Because they. Because. But he rescued them. And that was where that nuance starts to come in, in the mind of, oh, wait, it's never that simple. People are being people, and it doesn't mean that they are evil, but you got to understand why they're on that side. And JMS pulled no punches on that. Sheridan never went home. He went to the Alliance. He became something bigger, like, from beginning to end. This was a story that didn't give us an easy out. It didn't give us an easy way to say, well, we're still the good guys. Humans are always the good guys. Americans are always the good guys. Whatever it is, it's like, no, we. We fail, we stumble. And that's why I think the show set up the tone for that. And Crystal is so, so shockingly well in retrospect, because we got there and said, oh, no, we're going to go down this path. It's going to be dark. I'm hoping that this podcast doesn't just take us down the dark routes, because the. Because where I think it goes in the show, and this is something I'm going to be repeating throughout, is that not only does Babylon 5 become the Resistance, it becomes the joyful resistance. They aren't dour, they are challenged. They are sad. They have grief. There are a lot of emotions that our characters that we watch here go through. But. But season two is full of joy, full of wonder. It's full of beautiful character moments, and it's full of laughter, even though they know what they have to, or as they learn what they have to do. And I think that's the part of storytelling that tells us how to deal with things. If we do face the same challenges, it doesn't mean that it's all darkness. There's going to be joy, there's going to be moments to share with other human beings. Even as you go through this evening, you know, and that was. And that. That was the ride Babylon 5 took you on. As the seasons progressed, it never. It never lost sight of the fact that this was a home for people of all types, and people had really beautiful experiences as a result, even though things didn't turn out the way they thought it would.
• 47:36
  JOSH: No, absolutely. I Think that's a good place to wrap up for this week. So next time I'm excited to see what you have in store, which episode you're going to choose. But yeah, you know, this is like an ongoing project. It may not necessarily have a regular release schedule. It's just sort of something that, you know, you and I were talking about. I mean, we've said to each other many times over the last several years about how it feels like Babylon 5 or reminded of Babylon 5 or this is just like Babylon 5. And, you know, I find it much easier to talk through these things when you have a lens to interpret through, especially something that we're as familiar with and have as much love for as Babylon 5. So, yeah. Any final thoughts?
• 48:27
  JOHN: Yeah, I'm just gonna quickly follow up on that last notion where we're going. You know, it is a lens because I think the same way. You know, there's a lot of talk about myths and what they bring to us, and there's the hero's journey and people most equate that with Star wars, but it's in so many stories is that we identify those things because they're foundational to our experience as human beings. And this show didn't do anything superhuman. It just took really, in a really wonderful way, it took core aspects of what it is to be a human now and what it looks like to experience and deal with how we form power and governments and tribes, everything else. It's a lens because it was looking at that and then putting it into a really good, fun, accessible show. It makes it easier to talk about. Not because it's lecturing from a professor. It's because it's saying, yeah, here's a story. You are familiar with your core, and here's the language to talk about it in a way that isn't just sitting around and saying, okay, how are we going to analyze our political climate today from that? And that's the point of myths and stories and getting around the campfire and sharing those things, because it's a little bit easier to communicate something in story form and to then say, ah, this is how that character experienced that. And then it brings you into that mode. And that's why I love doing this for all kinds of stories and shows, hopefully on lighter subjects sometimes. But, you know, this, this does that. And I would leave. I would leave listeners with that notion that the show isn't about going dark and leaving you there. You know, this show is actually a very bright show in so many ways. And I think Season Two really embodies that the most because it's still. Still a little more episodic at that point too. But you really see that no matter what, you can still be a good person and enjoy existence. But don't. Don't fall into the notion that you're not gonna have to face challenges. I think that's where a lot of us are at right now, is that we don't want to have to face this. Don't want to. Have to do any of this. Don't want to have to deal with it. And we don't have that choice. And these characters don't have the choice to. They have many choices, but they don't have any other reality to deal with than the one that they're given. They can stick their hands in the sand, they can avoid the reality of it but these outside events are occurring on Earth Dome. They're occurring with the Shadows and the Voron. All the other alien races are having their problems. I mean, we'll be able to later go on to the Minbari and how screwed up they get. You know, there's always something. The wheel always turns. How do you live with it? How do you keep going? And how do you still have some joy in life? These characters and J Mask's writing really shows us that. And that's something I want to explore too, for us, our mental health and the listeners. Because there really are some cool lessons in this show as to how do you get through it while still staying human and still and not getting, you know, really beaten down by it.
• 51:38
  JOSH: No, completely. I think Babylon 5 is about facing the darkness but it's also how you come back from it. How you see the light again, I think. Well, if you've listened this far. Thank you very much, and we'll see you next time.