The Paragon of Animals



Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri

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Well, this was another "okay but not great" episode. (I have been warned ahead of time that "most of Season Five is not all that good, until you hit an episode called "Day of the Dead". However, I think from what I've heard, I am SERIOUSLY looking forward to "In the Kingdom of the Blind" simply because it FINALLY goes back to the Centauri plotline, and that's BEFORE "Day of the Dead". But none of this has anything to do with anything...) Basically, it had two plotlines, which were interwoven--one deals with saving this race we've never heard of from raiders (yawn, mostly) and the other one has to do with moving the "telepath war" arc along a little more. Since they both intertwine, I'm going to just start at the beginning of the episode and TRY to hit the high and low points all the way through in a row, but since I'm bad at remember exactly what happened WHEN, bear with me here...
Let's start with a brief plot summary and then describe various details that happened along the way. Basically, here's what happened. These people named the EnFili (or however you spell that) are on this planet on the edges of Drazi space, and they are being beat up by Raiders because their planet contains resources that other races want, but they cannot defend themselves, so they get a Ranger to help them. He makes it back to B5 with his message but is badly injured and unconscious when he gets there, and dying. Delenn comes up with the idea of having Lyta scan the guy to get his message that way. She does, and the B5 people use that information to save the EnFili. It also turns out that the Drazi, who were acting all holier-than-thou at the Council meeting earlier, where they not only refused to sign the Alliance's Declaration of Principles, they got the other races to refuse as well, were actually behind the Raiders all along. The good guys "talk" the Drazi out of attacking the planet by intimidating them with a whole slew of White Stars, and they back down and eventually they sign the Declaration as does everyone else. Meanwhile, Garibaldi is trying to get the renegade teeps on the station to work for them but they refuse outright, and then he gets Lyta to do it although she does NOT want to and is feeling more and more used all the time. Eventually she ends up talking to Byron, who notices how she's used to being ordered around by normals, and says that telepaths must be free to be their own people, not have to follow the normals' rules any more. She agrees with what he's saying and an unholy alliance is born...
Okay, now for the details, in random order:
The En'Fili, and their plotline--they bothered me. They were so corny, and their leader could NOT act. At ALL. They looked too much like Humans, too (well, so do the Centauri, but only as long as they have their clothes on! And besides, their culture makes up for it, and most Centauri actors can ACT. I can think of maybe, out of ALL the Centauri I've seen on the show, maybe, I don't know, TWO that were important enough to have lines that weren't good actors. All the others had a certain classy dangerousness or lively humour about them, or both.). Their plight may have been sad, but it was so over-done and cliched, and pounded into our eyes and ears with such horrible acting, that I did not care about them at all, really, and even killing off a Ranger who was trying to help them didn't raise my sympathy level. On the other hand, although he had to act through a LOT more makeup, Kim Strauss was as always wonderfully funny as the Drazi Ambassador. He's easily one of the best minor-character actors they have on the show, and I think he could probably tackle a major role well, too. There were a few good things about this plotline, though--one, I liked Franklin's writing the letter to the young Ranger's family telling them that their son or whatever was dead--nice touch. Secondly, since I unfortunately have knowledge of the future of this season (no, not because I'm a seeress, because of @#$%#ing SPOILERS!), it's nice to know that there are OTHER people acting up in the Alliance besides the Centauri! Say what you will, (singsong voice) the Dra-zeee messed up fiiii-iiirrssstt....
Lyta and her plotline: First of all, that part where she read the Ranger's mind while he was dying was pretty in terms of special effects, but it was CORNY. (I did sorta like him getting sllllurrrrrrpd! into the white glowing wormhole thingie though, that looked cool.) All those stupid "I see a doorway of light..." near-death clichés. Yuck. And that conversation with Garibaldi about it afterwards was just a BIT too religious for me. THANK YOU Garibaldi for saying you don't believe in souls, THANK YOU. I don't either! (That's why "Soul Hunter" bothered me so much, and also why I don't sit well with the whole Valen thing and the whole Lorien thing, but those are arguments for other times...) But it was interesting hearing how seeing people's minds when they were dying made BESTER the way he was--whoah! And I can see where it would be a traumatic experience, no matter what your beliefs. Still...I just didn't like the way things were phrased in that scene.
Lyta and Byron--he may sort of have a point, in that she is being used too much (she herself was finally getting MAD in this episode--she outright refused to help Garibaldi at first, and indeed, at second and third as well. "And how are YOU, Mr. Garibaldi?" she asks coldly when he STARTS the conversation by saying "I've got a job for you.") but he's going about it the wrong way, and he's going too far. I like what Lyta said, "They forget that telepaths are people too." but NOT what he said, "No, not people. BETTER." THAT'S going too far. Let's stop at equality and not push over the line into bigotry of your own and conflict, shall we? Also, I wish the next time he wants to make a point, he could do it a little less startlingly--he kicks chairs out from under ya, for pete's sake! I hate to say it, but I'm starting to agree with all the other fans--Byron is starting to get on my nerves. He's showing himself to be this totally arrogant SNOT. (I still like Lochley, though, so there!) And at the end, Lyta decides to listen more to his ideas and looks like she might be "joining" him shortly...in more ways than one. NOOOO, LYTA, NOOO!! You fool! What about Zack, sweet, kind, patient Zack, who is never grandiose and arrogant, who never touches some woman he doesn't even know without her permission, who brings you pizza and helps you decorate your quarters? Who was the FIRST person on B5 to treat you like a human being and not just use you? Huh? What about HIM? Sigh....
A perfectly good relationship, RIGHT down the drain, in place of a much less worthy one. Curse you, Straczynski...
The Alliance plotline: By far this was my favourite, as it was the humourous one. "And if the CENTAURI can sign this Declaration", booms G'Kar, "ANYONE can!"
"Thank you," says Londo, then does one of those delicious "mental double-takes", as I call them, "WAIT a minute--"
G'Kar in general was so much fun in this episode. He was FUNNY. When did that happen? All these lovely "writer-jokes"--written by, of course, a writer. "While we're waiting for G'Kar's 'muse'"..."But I've re-written it, it's better!" and he goes DASHING madly out of the room to deliver all the copies of the declaration to all the Ambassadors personally, after hours. He was hilarious. Notice something interesting--he was handing out scrolls. Londo was reading off of a scroll in yesterday's episode. So BOTH races use them. One wonders if this is a coincidence, showing a parallell between them, a similarity whether they want to admit it or not, or if they just picked it up from the Centauri and never dropped it...
Speaking of Londo, it was HILARIOUS hearing Sheridan imitate his accent! And he was GOOD at it! (At this point, I turned around to my family, who make fun of me because I like to go around talking in Londo's accent just for fun, and said, "SEE, other people have fun copying his accent too, SEE...") I just fell on the floor laughing at that part. But Londo himself was astonishingly quiet and subdued, for the most part, in this episode. And when he was speaking up, he was speaking up on the side of "light". Hmmn....since he survived the "great struggle between his spirit and his body" in yesterday's episode, that means that it must have changed him profoundly. Did we just see him have HIS "great spiritual awakening", the way G'Kar did in "Dust to Dust"? Oh, I'm not saying Londo is going to become some big religious figure--he doesn't have the personality for it. But I AM saying that this makes yet another parallell between Londo and G'Kar...and that that definitely seemed to be one changed Centauri...I suppose that Straczynski could be saying that now that he's been forced to face his demons and atone, Londo will be redeeming himself from now on, or trying to. That's all fine and dandy but I thought he already did that when he was willing to die at a moment's notice to save his people in "Into the Fire" in the early FOURTH season, but, hey...
At any rate, to drag this review, kicking and screaming, back to something vaguely resembling the topic, this was an okay episode, with a basically lame main plot but character bits along the way that made it worth seeing, and it advanced the telepath war plot significantly, so it wasn't great, but it wasn't a total loss, either.

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