A Race Through Dark Places
Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri
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WARNING: SPOILERS through the end of the third season.
Well, this was a decent episode. Not wonderful, but pretty good. It had one main plot, which was serious, and two sub-plots, which were both played for comedy. None of the three seemed to meet each other at all, but they will all be important later.
Let's address the main plot first:
The main plotline concerns Mr. Bester, our favourite Psi Cop (remember him, from "Mind War"?) coming back to Babylon 5 because he has evidence that the "underground railroad" to help unregistered telepaths escape from Psi Corps is using the station as a junction point. He wants to hunt down and catch these rogue teeps before they can go any further, and he wants station security, as well as Sheridan, to help him out.
This plotline was full of important stuff. For one thing, we learn a lot more about Psi Corps--how it was originally formed by "normals" to protect themselves from the telepaths and now it looks as if we've created a monster, but perhaps, as Sheridan says, "we DESERVE it." We learn just exactly how MANY experiments they do, and how creepy they can REALLY be. For example, while interrogating the rogue telepath--and this is one of his OWN KIND, mind you--Bester GRABS the information from his mind by force, therefore KILLING him. And the story that the lady rogue tells Talia, about how, when she refused to marry a man just because he was another P-11, they forcibly IMPREGNATED her while she was unconscious, and then took her baby AWAY once she had it, was nothing short of REVOLTING. "Big Brother" is not only WATCHING you, he's reading your mind...
And then the part with Talia and the rogues towards the end. Now, it never even OCCURRED to me that that whole thing was a fake. I mean, I KNOW that Talia is going to be gone by the beginning of the third season, and I KNOW she ends up being some evil patsy for the Corps all this time, but I don't know any more details like that; Talia is mostly a mystery to me. So, I don't know how, where, or WHEN we first find out what she really is. When she (supposedly) turns on the rogues and starts mowing them down with her PPG, I honestly thought, for a moment, "This is it!! OH MY GOD!" But then I told myself, "Wait, she CAN'T leave yet, she hasn't had her affair with Ivanova and she hasn't discovered that Ivanova is also an unregistered telepath!" (I ASSUME it's Talia who finds that out, but like I said, this whole plot-thread is one spoiler that I more or less managed to keep from myself.) Still, it freaked the hell out of me. And it gives us some WONDERFULLY sneaky foreshadowing--we get an image of Talia mowing people down, and smirking haughtily is implanted in our minds for later--even though she didn't actually DO it!
And the scene at the end, with Talia coming to talk to Ivanova with CHAMPAGNE, and it's late at night--another link in the chain of their relationship, you bet...
And now, for the first of the sub-plots. This concerns the fact that B5 is running on a defecit, and Earthforce therefore thinks that the officers with the bigger quarters--namely, Sheridan and Ivanova--should either pay rent for the extra space, or move to smaller ones. Even though the rent itself is reasonable, Sheridan absolutely REFUSES to go along with the idea, because of the principle of the thing. This results in steadily more and more and more hilarious happenings. Sheridan is doing fine until he can't get into his quarters at the end of a long day--they've been sealed! Ivanova tried to jimmy the lock on hers, and it "set off the sprinklers, scrambled the lock codes halfway down the corridor in both directions and scared the HELL out of Security". Then Ivanova and Sheridan both end up sleeping in Sheridan's office (no, not THAT kind of "sleeping together"...just SLEEPING! He at his desk, she on the couch) and Sheridan not only tells horrible jokes to keep Ivanova awake, but either he snores, or "last night we had a hell of a hull breach". Finally, by the end, he solves the problem by taking part of the military budget and using THAT against the rent, so that EarthForce is essentially paying rent to ITSELF. Never mess with the Captain...
And then, there is the THIRD plot. It is very small, but starts to set up a BIG relationship. Delenn decides that she wants to know more about Human culture, so she asks Sheridan to dinner. He accepts, and when she shows up in a low-cut, sophisticated gown, he gets very obviously JEALOUS of the way every other guy in the restaurant is staring at her! Hmmn...
And, at what point exactly, if ever, did it occur to him-- hey, she's wearing a slinky, elegant outfit, she invites me to dinner, ALONE, in a fancy restaurant, there's candles, meaningful gazes, laughter, (no wine; she's still half-Minbari, it would make her psychotically violent!) and we're staying out very late--IT'S A DATE, you moron!
I guess men are from Earth, women are from Minbar...
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