Voices of Authority
Reviewed by Lady Keela Shanri
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This was quite a good episode. Very important to the arc AND funny. Not many episodes of Babylon 5 manage that--the arc-heavy ones tend to be serious. There were several plotlines, but most of them had something to do with at least one of the others. So let's get started and see if we can't unravel all of this.
The "political officer" story thread was both funny and CREEPY in about equal doses. That is one thing B5 does VERY well, and seems to do OFTEN in the third season especially--make you laugh WHILE scaring you. While the snippy, SNOTTY, anorexically weird-looking Julie Musante's attempts to seduce Sheridan were HILARIOUS, yes (Ivanova got the best line in the whole show when she "caught" them together by accident: "Good luck, Captain. Looks like you're about to go where EVERYONE has gone before!" STAR TREK REFERENCE! And this is supposed to be the show that doesn't care about Trek and is totally seperate. Ha. As a convicted Trekkie, I laugh.) but at the same time, her casual discussion about how EarthGov "re-wrote the dictionary" over dinner was nothing short of chilling. Earth does not have homeless anymore; they have..."displaced"...people, who do not have jobs because they are insane or lazy. They do not have crime; they have random acts committed by the mentally unstable. Anyone who criticises the government is an ANARCHIST! And so on. I dare ANYONE to listen to this dialogue without shuddering.
Yet this plotline is also full of humour--the failed seduction scene, Zack's obvious crush on her, the running gag about the jackets not fitting right--all very funny. And the mention of why Sheridan's quarters were larger than regulation was a very nice piece of continuity.
Back to the creepiness factor--Musante's speech to the Nightwatch personnel on-station was SOOOOOO reminiscent of Nazi Germany. "We have to make sure we are ideologically PURE", "Oh, there will be SOME small infringments in the traditionally protected areas of speech and association while this is going on..." "Several government officials are going to be PURGED from office shortly..." Most sinister of all was her parting line to Zack about how whoever was behind this "nonsense" about the President would be punished "severely, quickly, and PERMANENTLY."
Acting kudos must be given to Sheri Shattuck, who, as Musante, with her cold dangerous anger one second and her fake "warm", insincere "you-can-trust-ME" smile the next, reminded me of a cross between a Nazi enforcer and a female version of Mr. Morden! If they ever need another sinister lady government official, it might be a wise idea to bring her back...she, to paraphrase Draal, "gave me the screaming willies!"
And with that, let us segué into the next plotline. Delenn tells them that they must contact and enlist as many First Ones as they can, but they have to be careful, as the First Ones are very powerful and do not like to be disturbed. ("Do not meddle in the affairs of First Ones, for they are subtle and quick to--" whoops wrong episode.) You also must contact them DIRECTLY. For this, she turns to Draal, who will give them the use of The Great Machine on Epsilon 3--remember, he made an alliance with the station in "The Long Twilight Struggle"?--so they can talk to them by projecting holograms the way he does. And, if they don't get "dissected, vapourised, or killed in a variety of other horrible ways", it will be "FUN"!
Sheridan was SUPPOSED to do this, but he gets tied up with Musante (no, not THAT kind of "tied up" you pervert, although I'm sure SHE wouldn't have minded that!) so Ivanova gets the job. And so a problem with timing results in a MUCH bigger victory for the good guys than they could ever have imagined.
Ivanova does find some First Ones, all right. In fact, she finds them at Sigma 957--the EXACT same place that Catherine Sakai found something weird and dangerous WAAAAYYYY back in the early first season! Great continuity. We see some funky special effects, as we go directly into Ivanova's eyeball (ouch) and follow glowing blue lines of "the force" (well, that's what it sounded like Draal was describing, anyway!) but the REALLY important part is what she found by ACCIDENT.
Well, okay, finding First Ones is no small feat BUT... Specifically, she somehow manages to look into the past--and she actually finds an old transmission of then Vice President Clark talking to someone in NO uncertain terms about how HE arranged Santiago's death! After she unplugs herself, Draal says with some confusion that he does not know how she did that; an "ordinary Human mind" wouldn't be able to. Little does he know that Ivanvoa is a latent telepath! And Sheridan isn't. So a scheduling problem turns out to be a huge bonus.
Draal records what she saw on her journey, but you may be wondering how they can use evidence gathered on a mystical mind-trip in court? Because any transmission from any member of the government has its own VERY secret code embedded in it. No-one else would know it. So if it's real, it'll show Clark's code when it's analyzed. This causes Musante to leave the station in a snit to deal with "the morale problem" back home but not before she gets Nightwatch even more paranoid than they already were. (If such a thing is POSSIBLE...)
Meanwhile, Ivanova goes off on the White Star with Marcus (they need someone who can speak Minbari, and Lennier wasn't available) to Sigma 957 to make contact with the First Ones she saw there. This is another hilariously funny bit--the bantering between her and Marcus, her irritated stiffness, and his constant dry sarcasm. They make a terrific comedy team. Marcus: "Do you have to pace that way?" Ivanova: "What way would you prefer I pace?" (after talking to the First Ones):
Ivanova: "At least now we know that they can UNDERSTAND our language, but they prefer not to speak to us in it."
Marcus: "Who knew they were French?" (glare) "Sorry."
And the best of all--when the First Ones start leaving (after saying "ZOG") and Ivanova is trying to figure out how to get their attention, Marcus quips, "How do you propose to stop them? Should we get a huge red-and-white sign and paint the word "STOP" on it? I could always put a bucket over my head and pretend to be the Ancient Vorlon God Booji!" (this is an INFAMOUS line on the Internet--that's what the "Booji Temple" linked to on this site was inspired by. I'm a follower myself, although I became one by accident--the "Pain Technician". Just don't ask.) Ivanova gets an idea from that: "That's it!" Marcus: "I'll go get a bucket".
No, no, what she has in mind is, since the First Ones seemed to react strongly to the name "Vorlons" when she was listing who their allies were earlier, she starts TAUNTING the First Ones about how the Vorlons basically said they were CHICKEN! And we discover that First Ones are evidently not as perfect as they make themselves out to be--reverse psychology works on them!
There are only a couple more things in this episode, and they seem small now but they will become important later on. First of all, we have Zack's affiliation with Nightwatch. This raises some questions, such as: How much can he be trusted? What IS a Code 7-R? Exactly what does Musante now know about it and how dangerous is it that she knows? If Garibaldi wanted to keep something from Zack, then WHY did he use the name of the secret code in front of him in the first place? And most (?) importantly: Where are Zack's loyalties...?
Last but not least, poor old G'Kar. No-one will give him the time of day, not even the normally polite Delenn! He is starting to feel out-of-the-loop since the loss of his Ambassadorship, and is trying desperately to figure out what's going on. We see more of his developing friendship with Garibaldi as he confronts him in the hallway to ask if the others have lost their respect for him--a very touching scene. And at the VERY end of the episode, an amusing and realistic bit where G'Kar wakes Garibaldi up in the middle of the night (causing him to bang his shin as he staggers across the room still mostly asleep), hands him the Book of G'Quan, and ORDERS him to read it.
"But I don't read Narn!"
"LEARN!"
And with that, we close OUR book on this episode. Have a nice daycycle friend citizen, and always remember: The Psi Corps is your FRIEND...
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