“And Now for a Word”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Mario DiLeo
Season 2, Episode 15
Production episode 214
Original air date: May 3, 1995
It was the dawn of the third age… This entire episode is a special report from ISN: “36 Hours on Babylon 5.” Hosted by Cynthia Torqueman, who spent a day and a half on B5, the show consists of footage from her trip as well various interviews conducted both on and off the station.
It opens provocatively, with a Narn ship and a Centauri ship both proximate to B5 as ISN’s ship, the Heyerdahl, approaches. The Narn vessel opens fire on the Centauri transport, destroying their ship.
Torqueman tries to get quotes from Franklin and Sheridan, but they’re too busy dealing with the casualties. We then see bits of interviews with Mollari and G’Kar. The former castigates the Narn for bringing the conflict into neutral space like this, which is unfair to their friends from Earth, as well as other races. The latter insists that the attack was wholly justified.
Next we see a statement from G’Kar in council chambers, which Torqueman has been given permission to record, claiming that the Centauri vessel was carrying weapons of mass destruction to be used against the Narn.
We see bits of interviews with various folks, among them Franklin and Delvientos, as well as Senator Quantrell on Earth. Quantrell damns B5 with faint praise, saying it was the right thing to do after the Earth-Minbari War, but that its use is less now, as Earth has rebuilt its military might to the point that, if there was a new war with the Minbari, EarthForce would fare better.
Cut to Sheridan ripping that theory to bits, as he does not believe that Earth is anywhere near ready to sustain a major conflict with the Minbari, or the Centauri, or the Vorlons.
After interviews with Ivanova—who gives up very little personal information, and also doesn’t correct Torqueman’s mispronunciation of her last name—Garibaldi, and Delenn, we get the results of the scan of the Centauri transport’s debris. Again, ISN is permitted to record the council session, where it’s confirmed that the Centauri were indeed carrying weapons. Sheridan is livid at the notion of weapons transfers happening right on B5’s doorstep, and announces that Centauri ships will be searched. Mollari objects very loudly to that, and says that any ship that is so molested will defend itself.
A firefight breaks out between the Narn and Centauri ships at the station. Sheridan reluctantly but firmly orders B5’s own forces to intervene, and shortly thereafter, both sides stand down, and Sheridan orders the Centauri transports impounded and searched.
Torqueman interviews both Mollari and G’Kar. Then a Centauri capital ship arrives through the jumpgate and blockades B5 until such a time as the Centauri transports are released unsearched.
Debates rage in council chambers, which Torqueman is no longer allowed to record, and attempts to get Sheridan or G’Kar to speak on camera result in very little information provided. Cut to an interview with Quantrell, who says that this is an example of one of the problems with B5: it may draw Earth into a conflict that they’re not even a part of, and shouldn’t be involved in.
EarthGov refuses to give in to the Centauri, so Sheridan sends an automated ship to see if the Centauri ship will stop it as threatened. It doesn’t; their bluff called, the Centauri stand down.
But then a Narn heavy cruiser comes through a jumpgate and engages the Centauri ship, despite Sheridan’s urging that they don’t need the help. The two ships destroy each other in a perfect metaphor.
Torqueman’s report ends with several people answering the question of whether or not B5 is worth it. G’Kar’s answer is a sad declaration that he honestly doesn’t know anymore. Quantrell is lukewarm. Everyone else, though, says it is worth it, with Sheridan being particularly eloquent on the subject.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan comports himself particularly well during his interviews, giving good, strong answers to the questions and doing so in a pleasant, charismatic way. But he’s not idealistic about it—on the contrary, he’s very realistic about what B5 is and what it can accomplish.
Ivanova is God. When Corwin is being interviewed, he keeps looking nervously behind himself at Ivanova, and you know he’s lying through his teeth about how calm and peaceful CnC is to avoid her wrath.
Ivanova herself is introduced by Torqueman as “perky and energetic,” and amazingly, Ivanova doesn’t haul off and belt her or burst out laughing (either of which would’ve been in character).
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi’s answer to the question of what he hopes for is fairly prosaic: a boring day. He’s still waiting…
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Torqueman’s interview with Delenn starts out friendly, asking her about Minbar, but it turns ugly quickly as the reporter all but accuses her of taunting the families of the humans who died in the Earth-Minbari War with her transformation into looking human-like. Delenn is very visibly affected by this.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari is a pure politician here, defending Centauri interests to the exclusion of all else in council chambers, and sucking up to Earth and being the friendly ally as much as possible in his interviews with Torqueman.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar is feeling the effects of the war. Throughout the episode he is sometimes angry, but mostly he’s tired. The war is going badly for the Narn and it’s visibly wearing on him.
We also learn that he joined the Narn resistance against Centauri rule after his father was executed by the Centauri.
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. We see a commercial for the Psi Corps, in which a boy is sad because he’s been ostracized due to his developing telepathy, but then a Psi Corps agent shows up and tells him that all he has to do is report to the Corps and everything will be just ducky.
The Shadowy Vorlons. Torqueman tries to talk to Kosh. She fails, though she does get him on camera for half a second.
Looking ahead. Among the weapons that G’Kar’s says that the Centauri transport was carrying are mass drivers, which will be used against the Narn homeworld in “The Long, Twilight Struggle.”
Welcome aboard. Kim Zimmer is the big guest, as she’s in practically every scene as Torqueman. Christopher Curry plays Quantrell. José Rey makes his second appearance, after “By Any Means Necessary,” as Delvientos, and not only is recurring regular Joshua Cox back from “Hunter, Prey,” but he’s finally given a name and rank! This is the first episode that identifies his character as 2nd Lieutenant David Corwin (though he’s still credited as “Tech #1”). He’ll be back in “Knives.”
In addition, Granville Ames, Leslie Wing, and John Christian Graas play the folks in the Psi Corps commercial. (Graas may be familiar as one of the kids Picard was stuck in the turbolift with in TNG’s “Disaster.”)
Trivial matters. This is the last of four episodes directed by Mario DiLeo. DiLeo has mostly worked as a cinematographer and director of photography in his career, though he was a prolific TV director from 1986-1996. This was, however, his penultimate TV directing credit, with an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess the following year bringing that portion of his career to a close.
While he does not appear, Senator Hidoshi, who appeared several times in season one, is mentioned, and also established as no longer being a senator.
One of the sponsors of the report is Interplanetary Expeditions, the company that Hendricks was working for in “Infection.”
It’s mentioned that President Clark has created two new organizations in EarthGov: the Office of Public Information (which sounds like a marketing firm and/or a propaganda machine) and the Ministry for Public Morale, both of which sound like they come right out of 1984…
Some statistics tossed out over the course of the episode: 41% of Earth Alliance citizens feel that B5 isn’t worth the time and expense; more than 250,000 humans died during the Earth-Minbari War; the Centauri occupation of the Narn homeworld started about 150 years previous, and lasted a century.
A subliminal message appears during the Psi Corps commercial—which many many fans in the 1990s tried to catch with the pause button on their VCRs—that reads, “The Psi Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps.” The message was edited out of French broadcasts of the show, as it violated French laws regarding subliminal messages (which are stricter than they are in the U.S.)
We learn in this episode that the Minbari have three languages. It’s implied that each caste has its own tongue.
The ISN crew comes in on a ship called Heyerdahl, almost definitely named after the great Canadian actor Christopher Heyerdahl, who is pretty awesome and absolutely should have a spaceship named after him. (I mean, I guess it could also be named for mid-twentieth-century explorer Thor Heyerdahl, but how likely is that, really???)
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“We have to make people lift their eyes back to the horizon, and see the line of ancestors behind us saying, ‘Make my life have meaning,’ and to our inheritors before us saying, ‘Create the world we will live in.’ I mean, we’re not just holding jobs and having dinner—we are in the process of building the future.”
—Sheridan’s answer to Torqueman’s query as to whether or not B5 is worth it.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “I hope to get through this interview without getting fired.” It is likely that the primary inspiration for this episode was the classic M*A*S*H episode “The Interview,” in which Clete Roberts (playing himself, as he was a war correspondent in Korea) interviews the staff of the 4077th. That episode had the actors creating their own answers to Roberts’ questions, so it wasn’t formally scripted as such (the questions were written ahead of time, but Roberts ad-libbed some extra questions, too).
That didn’t happen here, and while I would love to see what some of these actors would have done with their characters given free rein, it wouldn’t have been appropriate, as J. Michael Straczynski has bigger fish to fry.
This is one of the absolute best episodes of the series. So many themes are explored in this hour, and there are so many wonderful touches, both big and small.
Some of the small ones, which I really appreciated, included interviewing Delvientos, a welcome return (honestly, I hate that we didn’t see more of that end of station life), finding out Corwin’s name and rank (and establishing the very unsurprising fact that he’s scared shitless of Ivanova), and seeing Torqueman’s hilariously failed attempt to get anywhere near Kosh for more than half a second.
But the big ones are what make this episode shine. Torqueman’s brutal questioning of Delenn, as the ambassador gets hit with an unintended consequence of her metamorphosis. Mollari’s political acumen as he navigates both the interviews and the crisis with sleazy aplomb. G’Kar’s sheer exhaustion, magnificently played by Andreas Katsulas. Franklin’s compassion, especially his moving defense of why B5 is necessary. Ivanova’s bland unrevealing interview, in contrast to Garibaldi’s very relaxed one. And the Narn-Centauri War—which was already pretty ugly when last we looked in on it in “Acts of Sacrifice”—has grown nastier.
The best is Sheridan. Bruce Boxleitner has a relaxed charisma that is very compelling, and he uses it beautifully here, as Sheridan is a brilliant advocate for B5, focusing on the optimistic possibilities rather than the pessimistic ones—as opposed to Quantrell, who focuses only on the negative. Though, amusingly, those positions are reversed when discussing EarthForce’s battle readiness, as Sheridan is much less sanguine about Earth’s ability to fight a war—and since he’s a veteran who’s been at the heart of EarthForce as a ship captain, his opinion is a much more informed one than the senator’s.
What I particularly appreciate about this episode is that the characters are permitted nuance. I especially like the way Quantrell and particularly Torqueman are portrayed. Like Mollari, Quantrell is playing politics, not actively saying anything bad about B5, and giving lip service to what’s good about it. His words are friendly, but you can read the hostility toward the station (and toward aliens) between the lines—however, it’s nothing you can specifically point at and make an accusation.
And what a performance Kim Zimmer gives. It would’ve been so easy for Torqueman to come across as the same kind of vapid twit as the last ISN reporter to come to the station, Patricia Healy’s Mary Ann Cramer back in “Infection” and “By Any Means Necessary.” Instead Torqueman is personable, charismatic, mildly eloquent, seemingly intelligent, and generally has a genial affect that serves her work well. She also asks good questions, and I particularly like how effectively she modulates from polite and charming to hard-assed when questioning Delenn.
What this episode does particularly well, however, is show, in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways, how incredibly awful life is on Earth at this point. We’ve got Clark’s new propaganda and enforced morale organizations in his government. We’ve got Quantrell’s self-aggrandizing posturing and disdain for non-humans. We’ve got that chilling Psi Corps commercial.
And we’ve got perhaps the most insidious bit: Torqueman makes a passing reference to the unrest on Mars, referring to it as “an Earth-loyal population held hostage by a violent minority,” a description that is at odds with what we’ve seen of the Mars situation in “A Spider in the Web” and elsewhere.
B5, and M*A*S*H, for that matter, are hardly the only shows to use a visiting reporter as a way of exploring character and plot, but they have provided arguably the two best examples of the breed.
Next week: “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.”
