Back to Babylon 5 with an episode that straddles that line between science fiction and fantasy. Babylon 5 has a decent mix, with some hard scifi concepts thrown in (like a rotating station), but they also love to mix in the fantasy elements as well. S1E2 Soul Hunter asks that age old Clarke question: If the technology is sufficiently advanced can it be distinguished from magic?
To ask those kinds of questions you need access to a skeptic, and the station gets theirs in one Dr. Stephen Franklin, played by Richard Biggs. Biggs had experience playing doctors before on soaps so he is able to get off the ground running with the medical jargon, and Biggs is a charismatic guy that sells the good doctor’s eagerness to get to work. Ivanova apparently spends her time reading up on medical journals and that helps to establish that Dr. Franklin is brilliant. The characters also discuss the fate of Dr. Kyle from the pilot in an efficient way to make sure we don’t have to hear about him ever again.
We get our first taste of peril for the episode, with a mysterious ship drifting out of control towards the station, right before the cut to credits. Post credits Sinclair is eager to bring the ship in peaceably, and we get our first look at the defense grid. Some of the aforementioned hard scifi is evidence as Sinclair has to carefully match his ships rotation to the out of control ship and then just try and grab it with a claw. No tractor beams here! Which was probably part of the point of the sequence.
Delenn comes along to help identify the mystery alien, a subtle reminder that the Minbari are a much older and more advanced race, though not so advanced that they won’t grab a cop’s gun and go crazy. Delenn is clearly freaked out by the sight of what she calls a Soul Hunter, before more sedately explaining the situation to Sinclair, in an informal conversation in her quarters.
The aliens in the station all appear to have the same opinion on Soul Hunters as the Minbari, and we get a glimpse of his ability to sense impending death, as we follow the mini-saga of a con man getting murdered elsewhere on the station. W. Morgan Sheppard is one of the greats of science fiction television and film and he comes off as the right amount of alien and creepy as he describes the murder and the death to Dr. Franklin in cryptic fashion.
Sinclair starts to demand answers while the Soul Hunter does a weird chanting thing. After some pretty rudimentary baiting the Soul Hunter explains a bit about itself and trashes the Minbari. Dr. Franklin chimes in that he does not believe what the Soul Hunter is saying leading to one of my favorite lines of the whole first season “Ridiculous yes, so let me go”.
The Soul Hunter gets to deliver a bit of info about the Minbari War, an event that will loom large over the entire series. Sinclair decides to get rid of him and tells him to get lost as soon as he is able.
The show quickly switches gears in a scene that shows off that Babylon 5 staff are apparently very efficient when someone doesn’t want to pay to ship a body. A quick prayer, and launch that sucker into the sun. That is what you get for trying to pull a centuries old con in space I guess. Ivanova and Franklin get a small scene to talk about humanity, and Ivanova asserts her Russianess to explain that humans will always be humans.
Delenn swings by to threaten the Soul Hunter and explain a bit about Minbari beliefs. The Soul Hunter talks about his failure with the Minbari before letting the audience in on one of Delenns secrets, that she is one of the supreme rulers of the Minbari. With that out of the way he decides to stage a pretty obvious escape attempt that completely fools the hapless security guard.
We get our first look at N’Grath king of the Babylon 5 underworld! A decent idea let down by the effects, the king of the Babylon 5 underworld is a giant bug. He is a connected bug and is able to set up our Soul Hunter with access to areas of the station he needs.
Another Soul Hunter arrives and he is also unable to speak without being eerie. Garibaldi points out the obvious weirdness of the situation and Sinclair ignores him with a smile. The Sane Soul Hunter explains that the crazy one is violating their rules by committing murders himself. Crazy manages to snatch Delenn and begins the apparently very slow process of killing her.
He rants about how comfortable he is making Delenn’s death but she certainly does not sound like it is going to be a peaceful death. Sinclair and Garibaldi get a tip off from the other Soul Hunter and begin the chase. After a brief tense shootout and fight, the Soul Hunter gets to rave for a little about the Minbari and warn Sinclair that they are using him. The souls get to distract the bad guy until Sinclair turns the soul laser thing on the hunter.
In the Medbay Delenn gets to add some more mystery about her race’s relationship with Sinclair, and Sinclair starts to have his suspicions and translates “Satai”. JMS wanted to have large and small mysteries to help drive the plot of the overall season, and this promises to be a big one.
Sinclair bans Soul Hunters and brushes off the Sane Soul Hunter’s question about the soul collection, while Delenn happily sits in her quarters and frees them all.
Babylon 5 overall liked to sprinkle character development and season long plot throughout the 22 episode season while sticking to somewhat traditional story of the week episodes like this one. It was a practice that has its ups and downs, sometimes marrying terrible A plots with great character building B plots (as we will see when we get to TKO). It was a good way to satisfy the goal of serialized storytelling while also keeping enough traditional episodic elements. Season 1 relies on this the most out of the seasons, but all of them have their share of one offs that tease out a little more information on the characters.
The Good
- We get some more time with Mira Furlan this episod e, one of my favorite actors from the cast. She does a good job of leaning into the mystical side of her character in this episode.
- Richard Biggs arrives, and he is another personal favorite. Dr. Franklin is a fun character, and hey you cant have a scifi show set in space without having a doctor character now can you?
- I also like the flashes of personality that we get from Ivanova. Claudia Christian mostly plays her as very reserved so those flashes of sarcasm are a fun change for the character.
- I mentioned him above, but you also cant help but love hearing W. Morgan Sheppard’s gravelly voice come out of some alien makeup.
The Bad
- The musical stings are a bit heavy handed in the first season, something that I did not remember as I have not re-watched season 1 in some time.
- The CG of 1994 is not bad for the space scenes but still does not hold up well when composited next to a live actor. Something that can still be true to this day.
- They do their best, but N’Grath is clearly just a weird puppet.
Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)
- There are hints about how the very highest levels of the Minbari government are interested in Sinclair which turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Delenn and Sinclair have a friendly relationship, and this episode manages to make Sinclair call that into question.
- The Minbari War gets brought up some more, this time oddly enough by Franklin, whose role in that war was hardly as militaristic as the character sounds in this episode. The war and its aftermath will play a role in many episodes of this season, and the trauma from the war also explains some of Earth’s political situation. Governments that lose wars always end up being super normal about it.
- This episode also lays the groundwork for the show’s universe that legends are real and must be taken seriously. This insight comes in handy when the Shadows begin appearing and Delenn starts every story with “1000 years ago…”
- Crazy to think that in four years you get to see Martin Sheen dressed up as a Soul Hunter for one of the B5 movies.