Well, elsewhere I saw someone say this episode was the start of a "B5 with few new edges and angles". I agree. Whether these new "edges and angles" is a good thing remains to be seen. From where I stand, some of the edges might actually need some smoothing.
The teaser of "No Compromises" started off promising. The new character Lochley is interesting, but since this episode mainly just introduces her it is to early to decide whether the character will be the "strong presence" JMS claims.
Byron and the telepaths are interesting. In this episode Byron and his group were presented in a somewhat two-dimensional manner (although, this episode didn't give time for much else). Still, JMS is good at setting up a group in a more two-dimensional manner and then turning that group into something unique and three-dimensional by revealing that group's motivations. Unfortunately that doesn't dismiss the biggest cliche of the episode. Simon uttering a word to save Sheridan when the others couldn't get him to talk was the one of worst cliches possible (just projecting the assasin's plan into everyone's mind, minus the word, would have worked much better).
I liked Garibaldi's statement about Sheridan's having a martyr complex. It seems that Garibaldi's feelings about Sheridan weren't completely results by Bester's manipulation last season and the whole situation will not be totally forgotten. Its nice to see Garibaldi voicing a viewpoint somewhere in between Garibaldi's loyal, third season views and traitorous, fourth season views about Sheridan. Also one of the best lines in the episode was Garibaldi's "it's a little crooked" comment to Lochley which further reflected where Garibaldi was months earlier (during which time he shared some views with the other side fighting the Earth Civil War).
The whole assasination plot was decent up to the point when the assasin steals the starfury. At that point, in my eyes it left the realm of plausibility that it originally had. If the assasin was able to circumvent security to the point where he could steal a starfury without C&C noticing it that needed to be seen earlier in the episode. Plus Garibaldi, the CIVILIAN, seems to be able to jump into a starfury just as fast. While these actions can probably be explained off-camera to some extent (although still not fully), we need to see them on camera in this case. Every other time a starfury has gone out on patrol we have seen C&C and the starfuries comunicating during the process.
Hopefully Sheridan's overrule of Lochley's telepath decision will come up again. I can't see Lochley just letting this go without discussing Sheridan's change of decision with him (especially since the decision will probably have long term reprecussions). Hopefully, this conversation will be shown.
The problem with "No Compromises" was that it tried to introduce two new characters, a good bit of the current political situation and a decently complicated assasination plot. It tried to do too much causing a lack of time for each thing (which I think caused the starfury plot hole). JMS had this comment to say about "No Compromises":
"One note: due to the TNT ad blitz, we went into this on the assumption that we were (and did) pick up a LOT of viewers who had never before seen B5. These folks would need to be brought up to speed on the returning characters and situations, and the regular viewers would need to be brought up to speed on Lochley...so I wrote it with that intention."
Well, my reply would be now that were up to speed after "No Compromise", lets PLEASE get back to the meat of the story. Although from the look of next week's preview there is plenty of meaty character stuff coming up.
Rating: 6.0
Next Week: Londo suffers a heart attack
