Signs and Portents

Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri

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WARNING!! This episode review contains SPOILERS (or ominous hints, anyway) for up to the early fourth season. Read at your own risk if you have not seen that far!

Signs and portents indeed! This episode is where Babylon 5 finally gets REALLY into the arc. From this point on it things are MOVING, and there is no looking back.
The foreshadowing? Lovely. Just look at these examples:
1. Delenn is ALREADY starting to build that fancy little Minbari doohickey that will cause her to...well...you'll see!
2. MR. MORDEN (!) shows up for the first time. And when he is talking to Delenn, SHADOWS--get it, Shadows?--fall darkly across his whole body...for no reason. I mean, it's not like something could have just suddenly gone flying right over his head when he's indoors! And just what DID he find that was interesting out on the Rim, so interesting that it kept him out of touch for years on end...?
3. The SHADOWS show up for the first time, or rather one of their ships does. At first, we don't know exactly WHAT that thing is, but we do know it's creepy-looking and deadly as Hell! And we also cannot tell, when it appears--was it "cloaked", or did it just...APPEAR? Without having to make a jumpgate! Hmmn....
4. And speaking of poor Londo...Londo, Londo, Londo. Sigh. Oh, dear oh dear oh dear. Londo, you have just sold your soul, your planet, and all of your dearest friends to the devil, all with a few careless words said just to get an annoying man to leave you alone. "What do I want? I want the Centauri to take back their rightful place in the galaxy. I want us to stretch out our hand and command the stars again. I want everything to be the way it WAS!"
Yes, that was the correct answer to Mr. Morden's seemingly annoying/funny running-gag question, one of the VERY most famous quotes of all B5: "What do you want?" And by the end of the episode, the "friends he did not know he had" are already tightening their grip on him. "How can I find you?" he yells down the corridor. "We will find you." comes Morden's voice ominously from nowhere. "We will find you."
This is the end of his days as a blustering, fun-loving drunken fop, and the beginning of his gradual descent into darkness, corruption, isolation, and great danger.
5. Lady Ladira's prophecy echoed Kosh's words about how it would all end "in fire" (among other things). Look for a twisted version of this from Cartagia much later, near the culmination of the Shadow war.
And now for the actual review. I thought almost everyone did a good job with their characters. Gerrit Graham was a quiet, refined scum as Lord Kiro, the nobleman whose own greed became his downfall.
The lady playing Lady Ladira was a little TOO convincing; she freaked the dell out of me. GODS she's weird-looking. Probably even WITH her hair, too...But she did a pretty good acting job as an unbalanced old woman plagued by constant visions of fire and destruction.
Ed Wasser was of course wonderful in his first performance as Morden. He puts a cold hand of fear down your spine for reasons you can't quite understand, when on the outside he is friendly, polite, and utterly charming! You get the definite feeling that he is a BAD guy...when he was actually doing GOOD! And you have no idea WHY you feel that way...
I would say that my one quibble with this episode was the whole "Raiders" thing, which I was sick to death of to begin with, but since it was tied into the Centauri thing I guess it sorta has to be there. Thank the Gods, it seems we may have finally seen the last of those unimaginative grunts. Good riddance.
And....we also learn a few more choice tidbits of info that MIGHT tie in to the "hole" in Sinclair's mind. WHY did the Minbari deliberately choose him to command Babylon 5, and what exactly IS his relationship with them...?
"Signs and Portents" also contains a choice banter scene between Londo and G'Kar. Lighthearted moments like this between the two characters will get more and more rare as the show goes on, so enjoy it while you can...
And...is the Eye of Empire that is such an important symbol to the Centauri yet another candidate for "the eye that cannot see" of Lady Morella's prophecy later on? Just another thread in the enourmously complex tapestry...
All in all, a very good episode. It's a tightly woven plot that manages to move along at breakneck pace and leave nothing out, while still SOMEHOW being able to make time for character development and funny interludes. But as fast as this episode moves...
...you ain't seen NOTHIN' yet!


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