Rising Star

(Goodbye, Ivanova. We'll miss you.)

Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri

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Well.
This episode, while very important, and having some good parts, was disappointing in several ways as well. I know that it's hard to make an epilogue exciting, and that's what "Rising Star" is, an epilogue--not only to the Earth Civil War story that we just had the HUGE climax of in "Endgame", but also, it might have been, to the entire series ITSELF. Now, thank all the gods, TNT was able to pick up B5 and so Season Five DID get made, so they didn't have to do that. But it's not a lack of "excitement" that makes this episode disappointing, it's that...things just seemed to be wrapped up a little too easily. And they only implied or talked about things that I really, REALLY wanted to SEE, dangit!
I will now do a quick, relatively dry plot summary of this episode, then a list of my opinions (bwahaha.) Earth's new President is a woman named Susanna Luchenko, Sheridan has resigned from Earthforce for his mutinous acts in exchange for getting amnesty for all his officers, Commander Ivanova has been promoted to CAPTAIN Ivanova and now has her own ship--leaving the show (for nasty real-life reasons that I'm not going to get into here for the simple reason that I don't KNOW very much about them and don't particularly want to), Carolyn was NOT among the telepaths that were used in the last battle, Sheridan's dad is okay, and so is his mom, Sheridan and Delenn are now MARRIED and so, evidently, are Garibaldi and Lise (?). And a new Interstellar Alliance, essentially the B5 universe's equivalent of a "Federation" (heck, they practically have a Prime Directive!) has been formed. I don't care HOW many B5 fans stand up indignantly and yell that "IT'S NOTHING LIKE THE FEDERATION!!" sorry, this little Trekkie calls 'em how she sees 'em. Oh, yes, and Londo is going to be Emperor soon because the Regent is supposedly dying. (sniff...)
Now that you're caught up to speed, here are my opinions on everything:
THE GOOD:
1. Londo and G'Kar's scenes, even though they were both short they were delightful. Especially the one about...G'Kar's little...problem...(and not to be dirty here or anything, but if what Londo said is TRUE, I think I'll get me a nice-looking Centauri guy and just give up on Humans, heh heh...kidding...)
2. Susan's "grief scene." (Notice that I didn't call her "Ivanova", it was too intimate of a scene for that kind of formality.) For some odd reason, while Marcus's saying "I love you" just before he passed out got me a little, THIS scene REALLY made me lose it. I do this way with books, too--I don't cry at the tragedy itself, I cry when someone ELSE cries. Some kind of weird empathy I guess. Anyway, Claudia Christian did one of the best acting jobs I've ever seen her do as the guilt-wracked Ivanova, sitting on the floor, sobbing, her face all puffy and covered with tears--it did not at all look fake or contrived, it looked and sounded like a REAL hysterical crying fit. Totally. That scene just GOT me. When she lost it, I lost it. When she said how she actually HEARD Marcus say "I love you", (oh, gods! SHE HEARD IT!!! SHE HEARD IT!), and she tried so hard to rip the machine apart so that he wouldn't have to kill himself but she couldn't move, she was too weak...I was just sitting there sniveling like an idiot. How she KNEW that he loved her, and that he would never hurt her, but she was too afraid to go after what she wanted when it was right in front of her. (This reminds me of a Marcus quote, appropriately. "Touch passion when it comes your way. It's rare enough as it is. Don't walk away when it calls you by NAME!" Sniff...) And Franklin was very nice and warm and supportive in this scene. I will NEVER understand why most fans don't like him; he's a cool guy! And now Ivanova is gone, off on her own warlock ship. We'll miss you, Susan. Now, I'll reserve judgment on Captain Lochley, her "replacement", when I see her. Most fans hate her guts but I'm not like most fans, so we'll see. I do think, however, that a LARGE amount of why they hate Lochley so much is because she is in Ivanova's place--if she had been in an entirely different role/position, I have a feeling that the hatred would be nowhere NEAR as intense. But we'll see...
3. The scene with Sheridan and Bester was good. "Death--been there, done that!" ("Got the T-shirt!" I yelled at the screen at this point.) And it was nice to know that using those telepaths bothered Sheridan--we'd had NO indication of that earlier--and that poor Carolyn, Bester's lover, is still okay--well, as okay as she ever was...
4. The new Interstellar Alliance is a neat idea, and I LOVE how ANY race in it--which most definitely includes the Centauri--can now join the Rangers! BWAHAHA! Lufa Caldoni, anyone? (my own Centauri Ranger character, for those of you who don't know who that is.)
5. I do like the new Earth President, Susanna Luchenko. She's smart, cynical, a nicer person than she seems at first but also very, very politically savvy. She seems a bit YOUNG to be President (when they did a close-up on her face, and I mean CLOSE, she seemed to have no wrinkles AT ALL), just barely at the borderline age of 35 I'd say, but I think she'll do a good job. I'd like to see her again in a later episode. And I want to know--if she's married, what would you call her husband? The First Gentleman? I've been wondering that for YEARS...in relation to the possibility of us in real life having a female President someday...
6. I loved Sheridan's dad's reaction to Delenn--he TOTALLY does not care that she is part alien, he just accepts her right into the family, casually and easily. Such a cool guy!
THE BAD:
1. THEY DIDN'T SHOW JOHN AND DELENN'S WEDDING!!!!!! How could Straczynski be so CRUEL?!! After ALL that buildup, ALL that development, all that flirting, etc. and THEY DIDN'T SHOW US THE CONCLUSION!!!!! I am SOOOOOOOOO mad at that. I'm not a romance-ridden "chick-flick" soppy type of female, but for the Great Maker's sake, when you've been building the relationship THAT long, you HAVE to show the wedding, you just HAVE to!!! To do otherwise is not only unfair but downright MEAN. So a wedding would be "sweeps-month-ish." So? SHOW THE DAMN THING ANYWAY!! We deserve it! After ALL THAT...they had BETTER at LEAST show us what their kid looks like sometime in Season Five!! I mean it! Someone's head is gonna get whacked off! I am PISSED about this. This is not only the biggest disappointment of this episode, but one of the worst ones of the show as a whole. (Only slightly eclipsed by the "Get the Hell out of our galaxy!" end to the Shadow war.) And not only do we not see it, but the TINY bit of information we get about it from Londo and G'Kar's conversation afterwards seems to indicate that it was a HUMAN ceremony--the only part of it mentioned specifically is that they were throwing rice, which is a very Human tradition. (Did you know that in a way, that actually dates back to the Ancient Romans? Really. Only they threw nuts instead of rice, which sounds a lot more edible--and painful. Sorry, I just picked up a new piece of information yesterday and felt like showing it off, don't mind me...) That sounds like Sheridan just ran right over Delenn's culture, and that BOTHERS me. I always thought the wedding should have been a blend of Human and Minbari (and that we should have SEEN it, dagnabit!), not just one or the other. Now if only Londo had made some crack about "those irritating little chimes the priests were shaking" in addition to the "rice" thing, I would have been okay with it. But as it is...it bothers me. Big time.
2. On the subject of conjugal bliss, Garibaldi and Lise are now MARRIED? THAT was quick! I thought that they thought they were bad for each other, that Lise was afraid to try to have a relationship with him again, etc. All we get of their new relationship status is ONE little piece of one throwaway line, which makes it seem VERY hurried, artificial, and weird. This is DEFINITELY one of those plot-threads that got wrapped up too fast because of the presumed Four-season deadline, right? Look me in the eye and tell me I'm wrong. (beat) Thought you couldn't. Not to mention, I DO NOT LIKE LISE. And I do NOT like the idea of her always being tied to Garibaldi now. I like him, well, I do when he's got his own brain, but I HATE her. And doesn't it occur to Garibaldi that maybe, just maybe, someone who switches husbands every three months or so is not exactly the most STABLE or dependable person in the world?!
3. The Regent is DYING! Oh, no, poor little thing! That announcement almost made me snivel through all the more lighthearted parts that came after it. Sure, I guess it's better for him to die and get out of his suffering as quickly as possible now that he has the Keeper--but he never should have gotten THAT, either! Sniff... And Londo did NOT look happy at all when he heard he was going to be Emperor soon, did he...?
4. The editing was handled badly--I mean, the scene changes. They went from sobbing-your-heart-out grief to totally silliness TOO quickly; it felt disrespectful somehow. I did like the scene between Londo and G'Kar with Londo going on about "going the duration", but it should NOT have been right after Ivanova's grief scene, that was TOO much of an emotional leap. Laughing so quickly after that scene seemed like I was diminishing it somehow, being rude. Like laughing at a funeral. They should have put a more serious scene after that one, to ease us back up to the light-hearted, silly level. This episode suffered from violent, rude-feeling mood swings like that all the way through. It felt kinda slapped together, like the scenes were all written out all nice and then tossed into a hat and pulled out in random order.
So, as you can see, the good stuff about equals the bad, maybe a little less. (There are only four in the "bad" list as compared to six in the "good" list, but all the bad ones are BIG problems).
The verdict? While this was an important episode, and opened more doors of equality and cooperation between the races, which is something I always like, it had a LOT of problems.

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