Mind War
Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri
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Well...what did I think of this one. First of all, I see the good ol' first-season tradtion of giving each character an episode to showcase them is still going. To wit: "Soul Hunter"--Delenn (kinda), "Born to the Purple"--Londo, "Infection"--Franklin, "The Parliament of Dreams"--G'Kar, and now, "Mind War", as you might expect from a name like that, showcases our resident telepath, Talia Winters.
This was okay, I guess. It for one thing told us a LOT more about the Psi Corps. We learn that they deal VERY harshly with rogue telepaths and are into control--of just about everything. That they are power-hungry and already HAVE quite a bit of power. We learn that "Psi Cops", creepy-looking dudes and dudettes who dress all in black, have a rating of P12 and are trained to hunt down rogue telepaths by any means possible. That the Psi Corps has been doing experiments not only to increase the level of a telepath's power, but that they have also been trying to create stable telekinetics! According to Jason Ironheart in the episode, only one out of a 1,000 humans is telepathic (that's a good chunk, actually...) only one out of every 100,000 TELEPATHS is also TK (telekinetic) and half of THEM are NUTS!
And, most importantly, we meet a character who will be VERY important throughout the show--the "lovable" Mr. Bester, played WONDERFULLY by Walter Koenig, and he is definitely NOT Chekov!
Well, the actual plot wasn't all that great. It wasn't BAD, but it wasn't great. The idea of a guy evolving into a higher being and floating off into the sky...been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
But you forget the "been done" aspect in the face of all the interesting new stuff about Psi Corps, G'Kar's philosophical sparrings with Catherine Sakai, and Bester's deliciously snotty lines and sinister grins. "Anatomically impossible, Mr. Garibaldi" he says when Garibaldi glares at him. "But you are welcome to try. Anytime. Anyplace." Grin.
Great stuff.
The plot was well-paced and interesting and full of intrigue. Some of the special effects were a bit hokey, and I DEFINITELY could have done without that ending, but the way it was set up, it kinda HAD to happen that way...
I think Andrea Thomspon did a good job of acting as Talia. She was able to show real emotion (and that was a real tear in that one scene, folks!) and I think acquitted herself well in "her" episode.
This episode was well-paced, filled with dark foreshadowing and mystery, and told us a lot of interesting stuff about telepaths and the Psi Corps in general, plus about Talia herself, and it had some very funny lines. It was a bit quiet, but then, TALIA'S a bit quiet, and it was HER episode after all.
All in all, it wasn't wonderful, but it was fairly gripping and set up some stuff we'll need to know about later.
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