A Distant Star
Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri
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This, the THIRD B5 episode written by classic long-time "Trek" writer D.C. Fontana, was not wonderful, but it wasn't really BAD either. It was kind of...quiet.
First of all, you must understand that my perceptions of this episode are going to be kind of warped because my idiot local station showed it out of order. No, I don't mean that they showed the ENTIRE episode at the wrong time; I mean that they MIXED UP THE SCENES from WITHIN the episode. They went to a commercial mid-sentence, cut out of scenes at random, and REPEATED some scenes! I saw the scene with Garibaldi trying to smuggle the ingredients for bagna cauda on board past Franklin BEFORE I saw the scene where Franklin put him on the "food plan"!! I kid you not, it was THAT BAD. So, this review is gonna be a bit off, 'cos the way I saw the episode was a bit off!
Let's start with the main plot. It concerns an old friend of Sheridan's showing up at the station with his "explorer ship". Evidently these ships hardly EVER show up anywhere for long, as Sheridan tells everyone to "take a good long look--if you see TWO of these in your entire liftime, consider yourself lucky". They are the ships that go out to the Rim and push back the boundaries of "known" space. They are HUGE, and seem to be colony ships, at least, they are the correct SIZE for it anyway! A MOVING city in space.
Anyway...after bantering with Sheridan for a while and making him feel bad about being stuck behind a desk, Captain Jack Maynard gets back into his explorer ship and goes back through the jumpgate. Everything seems to be hunky-dory...
...until this huge, spidery-looking, organic black ship that seems to SCREAM in your mind appears out of NOWHERE and whaps them off course! Their ship is badly damaged and worst of all, they've lost the "lock-on-signal" to tell them where their jumpgate is. They're STRANDED in hyperspace.
Eewww...creepy idea!
A clever plan by Sheridan and Ivanova to make a "lifeline" of Starfuries to hook into each other's lock-on signals and then broadcast THAT to the explorer ship works, eventually, but not before the Shadows show back up again several times, cause the Zeta Squadron Leader to bite the dust, and Warren Keffer to get beat up badly. But he points the way out for the explorer ship to get out, watches which way the Shadow ship came in and uses that direction to figure his own way out, JUST before running out of oxygen.
Now, the good, the bad, and the important about this plotline:
1. The Bad: Captain Jack Maynard just...bothered me, somehow. I don't know why, but he just seemed too CASUAL to be the Captain of such a huge and important ship. If you think SHERIDAN is "Captain Smiley"...he's practically GRIM compared to this guy! Also, none of his officers could act. At ALL.
2. The Good: The "lost in hyperspace" was a creepy idea and the way they got back was clever, I'll give it that.
3. The Important: A. There are now TWO people to see a Shadow ship--even though they don't yet know them by that NAME--and live: Ambassador G'Kar ("Revelations", in the scene I missed) and Lt. Warren Keffer. Now, my beef with this is that Keffer should have DESCRIBED it a little better, so that others could compare it with their notes, but NO, that would hurry the arc along, and it's much more fun to be foreboding...
B. We first learn a little more about exactly WHAT hyperspace is and how the jumpgates work in this episode.
C. We see the first long, philosophical, friendly talk between Delenn and Sheridan. (The whole "We are starstuff" speech.) This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship...
D. The whole thread about Delenn being doubted by her own people now that she is half-Human is started up.
Okay, now on to the sub-plot. It was pretty funny, although it means absolutely nothing. Sheridan and Garibaldi are both put on "food plans" (you can't call them a "diet", that's not politically correct!) to LOSE weight, while Ivanova is put on one to GAIN weight to help her recover from her injury better. "Just great. All my life I've fought against Imperialism--and now I'M the expanding Russian frontier!" she grumbles.
Anyway, this was very amusing, especially the scene where the three officers are eating together and they TRY to switch plates--the Franklin comes along behind them, clears his throat, and they GUILTILY switch back. In a BIG hurry.
Don't try to pull nothin' over on the Doctor! But at the end, Franklin proves that he is not COMPLETELY strict by not only letting Garibaldi have the stuff, but also sitting down to eat the bagna cauda (sort of an Italian fondue) with him.
Like I said, not the world's best episode, but I've seen worse. And I'm sure that if I saw it in its UNMANGLED state, I'd like it even better!
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