River of Souls

Babylon 5 T.V. Movie #3

Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri

Click HERE or HERE to see further pictures from the movie. (There weren't very many available).

Well.
I have FINALLY seen through to the end of Season Five, and so now I am free to watch the later B5 movies. Now, while I am aware that "In the Beginning" and "Thirdspace" both take place, and were made, before this one, I do not own either of those, so I figured "What the heck", and skipped ahead to watch "River of Souls".
I wasn't expecting much, since I KNEW ahead of time it would be heavily about Soul Hunters (and I HATED that episode) but it was surprisingly decent. If only for the humour and special effects. The plot--the plot had a sort of anticlimactic ending, and things that I wanted to happen did not, but all told, it wasn't THAT bad. I liked how the different plotlines eventually blended into each other.
Let's do a basic plot summary and then break it down into its parts:
This archeologist, Dr. something Bryson, is digging on this far-off alien world when he comes across this HUGE chamber full of all kinds of glowing balls. He figures out that these are souls, and, indeed, you can hear them talking to each other if you listen closely enough. His assistant (whom I kind of liked) tells them that an alarm has been sounded and the place is about to collapse, so they should get out of there NOW. Relucantly, Bryson does so but just before he leaves, he grabs the biggest, fanciest-looking globe and tucks it in his backpack.
Back on the station, Lochley and Corwin are discussing how B5 has been so much quieter now what with Sheridan and Garibaldi being gone, trouble seems to be attracted to those guys like a magnet. Then Garibaldi arrives on the station--at a completely different spot--and a fight breaks out where they are, in the Zocalo! Lochley gets a headache and staggers off to her quarters.
Bryson comes onto the station as well and talks with Garibaldi, whom it seems is using the money of Edgars Industries (which he now owns, remember--this takes place 6 months after the end of Season Five proper--it's June, 2263.) to fund his research. Garibaldi wants results, and he wants a chance to look at Bryson's notes and make sure he's actually making progress, and he wants these things NOW or else he'll cut off his funding. Bryson, nervous, goes back to his temporary quarters on the station and with Garibaldi's warning ringing in his ears, goes too fast with his studying of the globe and starts to...let something loose...
Corwin brings Lochley something to take care of her stress so she won't get as many headaches--a "love bat". No, that's not anything dirty (although the name sure does SOUND suggestive, doesn't it? Or maybe I just have a dirty mind...) it's this padded sort of Nerfİ-like bat that when you whack it against something (Corwin, who is turning out to be a MUCH weirder boy than I thought, whacks HIMSELF) it gives you messages of positive reinforcement. (whack) "I love you." (whack) "I forgive you" (whack) "What a lovely dress you're wearing today!" (no, just kidding, I made that last one up.) A bit worried for her (first officers?) sanity, Lochley accepts the gift anyway and thanks Corwin.
In Down Below, there is an illegal holographic brothel being run without anyone knowing about it--until a customer electrocutes himself with their faulty equipment and reports it to Lochley. (The way the brothel works is, the customer wears a sensory suit thingie that is programmed into the hologram, so he or she can make the illusion of "touching" the person wearing the suit through electronic impulses--the holograms are NOT "solid", like the ones on Star Trek.) So Zack goes down there to yell at the guy and tell him to shut down, which does nothing except cause the guy running it to sic a lawyer on Lochley that bothers her all the time and keeps threatening to sue her for lots and lots of money or worse.
Then it gets confusing. A lot of stuff happens in this part--we find out that the sleazeball running the brothel has made a hologram of LOCHLEY (!), the souls take over the dude's mind and start to get loose, causing havoc around the station, and start trying to take over bodies--even holographic ones. (Their leader, or A powerful personality anyway, takes over the Lochley hologram and then makes it look exactly like her right then--wearing her normal uniform and hairstyle instead of that little pink thing and garters...)
This Soul Hunter dude shows up and tells them all about the Soul Hunter philosophy and demands that the B5 people give him the globe back so that he can save them, Lochley is hit hard against the wall while trying to save his life from the vengeful newly-freed souls, and dies for a second on the operating table, (does this now put her in the same category of Sheridan--people who were once dead? Hmmn...) and while "trapped between moments" as it were, she travels to the home planet of the souls, back when they were alive, and sees it as it used to be, not just the barren hunk of rock and stone ruins that it was when Bryson got there, and talks with a soul who has taken on the form of Franklin. He tells her that when the Soul Hunters showed up at their world, sensing that all the people there were about to lose their corporeal bodies and "die", they weren't dying, they were EVOLVING--they were just about to go to pure-energy FIRST ONE STATUS! But that was denied them, right at the crucial moment, and even worse, they were trapped for all eternity.
Then a bunch of Soul Hunter ships show up to nudge the first Soul Hunter along in his job, and maybe also blow up the station if they get into a bad mood, while the souls, or some of them anyway, get into the reactor and threaten to blow the station up so that they can get their revenge on the Soul Hunters who trapped them. Lochley tells "our" Soul Hunter Dude ("The No-Name Soul Hunter Dude"?) what REALLY happened with the people on the planet, that they were evolving yada yada. (Oh, and at one point in here, she lobs a grenade into the holograhpic brothel because she's figured out that the souls are using that place to tap into the station's power source and also use the holograms to communicate and spy on the people of the station.) He is so shocked when he realises all the harm his people have done that in order to save the station and appease their wrath, he allows himself to be killed by the souls. They do so, and grab him into their world, and the station is more or less safe.
But there's still the matter of the holographic brothel that needs shutting down, and the lawyer is REALLY coming down hard on Lochley now that she blew the place up! She reminds him of a clause in his contract that he did not think anyone would notice, that says something about how he has no protection should anything happen to the brothel through military action, and if he tries to argue about it, HE'LL get in trouble! Then she gives him the "love-bat" to ease his stress--with a few modifications. Now it says things like "I'm ugly." "I'm a loser." "Nobody likes me." "My mother dresses me funny." etc. Totally disgusted, the guy leaves it in her office and runs out the door. Heh heh heh...
Now for lists of the good and the bad about this movie:
1. I LOVED the soul-people's home planet, back when it was all green and everything. What with the delicate elfin towers spiraling into the sky, the gorgeous thick, bright greenery, the rings hanging diagonally in the sky like a white rainbow, the sea, and the two moons, it was GORGEOUS. It looked like a fantasy world or something. I felt like I was inside a Timothy Hildebrandt painting come to life! Absolutely beautiful.
2. The love-bat--especially the modified version. I loved how even when it was saying the insults instead of the nice things, it was still using that same saccharine-sweet voice. Hilarious.
3. I liked how this movie focused more on the "background" or "secondary" characters of the B5 main character pantheon, especially Lochley and Corwin. First of all, Tracy Scoggins gave a stellar performance as Lochley in this episode--heroic, brave, intelligent, smart-mouthed, clever, etc. and it was really nice to get to see her RUNNING the station, all by herself, being allowed to finally BE Captain without Sheridan either overriding her decisions, arguing with her, or hogging the spotlight all the time. We finally get to see how good of a Captain she'd make--and she ain't bad. I also thought it was nice because after all, the character was only in Season Five and even then she didn't get to do all that much, and she wasn't at the big dramatic tearful farewell party from "Sleeping in Light" (yes, I KNOW it was filmed back in Season Four, but you know what I mean!) so it was nice to give her something to really DO before B5 went all the way off the air. Gave the character more of a sense of closure. And Corwin--I've always liked him. One of the most underused characters in my opinion, he's funny (unintentionally) and has a nice personality, and here we get to see him having a bit more responsibility. Plus, that love-bat scene, while it did make me wonder about him, was great.
4. I liked how the plotlines which seemed to have NOTHING to do with each other eventually blended all together. Very nice.
5. The explanation of how the holographic brothel works was a nice bit of science fiction, and helped clearly define it as different from Quark's holosuites from DS9. Not that Quark's is a bad thing, but I liked the difference.
6. The special effects when Lochley was sucked through the floors of the station and into the globe with the other souls were absolutely STUNNING.
7. This is not really a like or a dislike--just a comment--I noticed the name of the first customer (that we SEE) who visits the holobrothel at the beginning of the movie. "Mr. Klute". One wonders if that was taken from the Jane Fonda movie of the same name ("Klute") in which she plays...wait for it...a CALL GIRL! Hmmn...
8. Garibaldi's reaction to Lochley's hologram...staring...and staring...and STARING...didn't I once say they would have made a good couple? (Rather scary joke--she's rather popular--which does not seem to bother the real Lochley at ALL when she hears about it--but mainly popular with the WOMEN customers! What does THAT mean, I wonder...)
9. That scene with the poor little fat guy customer who keeps blithering on and on and on about how he didn't want a threesome ("Well, there was that one time in camp, but it was only ONE time!") as the hologram he programmed up gets taken over by a soul, then conjures up one of the male holograms, whom it sees as its husband back on their planet, and they start making out right in front of him. Very funny. And is it just me, or did this guy's stammering start to remind anyone else of first-season Vir?!
10. Lochley's calling the souls "essences"--nice idea--and refusing to believe in the whole thing. THANK YOU. I see now why I like her--she's always the voice of reason. The one that does NOT laugh at the stupid jokes, the one who does NOT believe the hocus-pocus but instead looks for the real answer behind it. Exactly the same way I would react. On the other hand, I also liked the line she says to the Soul Hunter--"Well, I don't know about Heaven, but what you just described sounds just about as close to Hell as I can think of." was VERY appropriate--exactly what I was thinking. (And Zack's "Hey, I believe in Heaven, okay?!" was great too.)
11. Martin Sheen, who usually plays rather different roles, did a surprisingly good job as the "young" Soul Hunter who was only 4,000 years old. I say surprisingly 'cos I've seen how BAD of actors both his sons are...

And now, for the bad:
1. My main problem is what DIDN'T happen that should have:
Lochley should have BEAT THAT SLEAZEBALL UP when she found out about her hologram. Okay, okay, she got to blow up his business, but come ON, this is Captain "One-Punch" Lizzie here, she should have popped him one! I was just WAITING for her to EXPLODE when she found out about it...and she more or less didn't.
The lawyer guy should have been slugged at one point, too, if I'd had my druthers.
When the soul that took on the form of Lochley's hologram changed its clothes and hairstyle to look EXACTLY like the real thing, I totally expected it to start going around the station pretending to BE her, giving destructive orders, fooling people, and causing chaos.
Come to think of it, for all the danger of the souls grabbing people's bodies and taking them over that the Soul Hunter kept talking about, I never really saw anyone get "posessed", did you?
2. The fact that the whole movie was about Soul Hunters in the first place. However, the potential annoyingness of this was toned down by the fact that they told us more about their philosophy, what they really are, what they really do, and what they THINK they are doing, from their point of view, and the fact that not all of the characters there believed in souls. If it wasn't for the above, I would have completely hated this movie from beginning to end--or rather, from beginning to about maybe all of five minutes through, when I would have turned it off...
3. That suit thingie that the holobrothel customers had to wear. Can we say CHEESY-looking?!
4. One of the episode's strong points is also a weak point--there were two few characters in it. Sure, the ones that there were got more to do and more attention paid to them, but I would have liked to see how, say, Vir reacted to one of the holograms, or something...
5. The ending was rather anticlimactic--and a bit unrealistic. If these souls wanted revenge that bad, do you think they'd REALLY stop at just ONE Soul Hunter? No, I think they'd want them all, or at least as many as possible! Oh, well...
The end verdict? While "River of Souls" is not fine art, it was also not anywhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was entertaining in a light-hearted way, sort of the B5 equivalent of a "silly summer matinee." Not wonderful, but still enjoyable to watch anyway.

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