As much as I tend to skip Born to the Purple or Infection when I re-watch season 1, I always make time to stop off at S1E5 Parliament of Dreams.  An arc heavy episode for Sinclair, some fun world building with the other religions, and a G’Kar heavy plot, what more could anyone want? As with most of the early Season 1 episodes we are introducing some new characters, and expanding the existing ones in interesting ways.  The episode dips into the melodramatic with the Sinclair/Catherine plot, though I don’t know how you can do too old lovers reconnecting and not be melodramatic.  

The episode opens with Garibaldi being an asshole to our first sighting of a Drazi, a race that will eventually be one of the most prominent of the non main character species.  For as nuanced as he was in the previous week Garibaldi is still a cop with all the baggage that entails.  His combative attitude here comes across as very internet atheist, but thankfully the scene moves on pretty quickly when Garibaldi recognizes a woman that enters the station.

G’Kar singing fake showtunes was not something that anyone probably thought they needed, but they got it anyway.  G’Kar quickly moves from happily singing as he cooks to biting the head off of a poor diplomatic courier that interrupts. The courier is played by Thomas Kopache, a regular in sci-fi TV, and John Oliver’s famous Catheter Cowboy.  As always G’Kar is over the top and his abuse of this underling is not a great look for him.  Turns out an old rival has sent him a message that promises his impending death, and we go to credits as G’Kar looks on in horror.

G’Kar is still looking horrified as his now dead rival explains the particulars of the assassination plot.  He is interrupted by the suspiciously timed arrival of his new aide Na’Toth played by Caitlin Brown, another sci-fi TV veteran. 

Garibaldi swings by to let Sinclair know that Catherine, the mystery woman from the cold open,  is aboard the station.  Sinclair looks unsettled by the news, but forges ahead to the Centauri religious ceremony regardless. 

The ceremony takes the form of a large drunken feast complete with music and banquet tables.  Peter Jurasik does not necessarily play drunk very well in this scene, but while he flails around Vir explains that the ceremony celebrates a long ago mutually genocidal war that the Centauri waged against another sentient species on their planet, the Xon.  I always get a kick out of the gentle and peaceful Vir enthusiastically celebrating the extermination of another race.  Even good Centauri have their cultural blind spots.  Pay attention to the household god statues for a bit of subtle information on the Centauri that will come up later in the season.  

I enjoy this scene for the throwaway backstory that two different sentient species evolved on Centauri Prime.  It is a fun sci-fi concept that gets glossed over, but I find it believable that both races decided to wipe each other out (though we only have the Centauri’s word for this).  Given our own history I can’t imagine two entirely separate species getting along at all. 

Sinclair ducks out to meet up with Catherine played by Julia Nickson, and the scene is played as awkward for both characters, though they eventually agree to dinner.

G’Kar meanwhile is interrogating Na’Toth who seems to already be through with his bullshit, and she placates him, that is until he receives the black flower that marks him for death.  G’Kar is upset by the death threat, but also mentions that he has experience with people trying to kill him and he is not worried enough to run to Sinclair or Garibaldi for help.  I like the quick reminder that while the Narn Regime is viewed as somewhat villainous by the other races, they are a new power that only recently won their independence. 

Another new character gets introduced.  If G’Kar gets Na’Toth (RIP Ko’Dath) and Londo gets Vir, it only makes sense that Delenn would get an underling as well.  Lennier is a wet behind the neck-ears religious student played by yet another sci-fi veteran, Bill Mumy. While Delenn is warm to her new aide, in their first interactions we also get a quick reminder that Delenn is slumming it as an ambassador when she is a member of the ruling council of her people.

We get another quick scene with N’Grath, filmed from yet another angle that does not hide the puppetness of the character.  N’Grath supplies G’Kar with a hulking bodyguard to keep him safe from the assassin. 

More of the romance plays out between Sinclair and Catherine.  There is a bit of an info dump from both characters that spells out a recurring but passionate relationship, before the scene cuts to the next religious ceremony.  Where the Centauri use religion as an excuse to party, the Minbari appear to take theirs much more seriously. One of my favorite details of the scene is how fidgety G’Kar is, anxiously looking for his bodyguard the whole time.  Another favorite detail is the quick switch that G’Kar pulls with the fruit in the background while Delenn is chanting about death.  A nice bit of background comedy that takes a few repeat viewings to catch if you are not watching close enough. The ceremony is self-serious, but Mira Furlan is an ace at selling these kinds of things, a skill that she will lean on heavily with Delenn throughout the series. 

G’Kar runs back to berate his bodyguard before realizing the poor brute is dead. Garibaldi does not believe anything G’Kar says as he starts his investigation into the death, but not without a little poking at G’Kar. G’Kar starts his own investigation, interrogating the poor courier and getting the name of another council member that may want him dead. Post-Revolutionary politics are not for the faint of heart. 

Catherine meets with some businessmen and becomes a rich lady, so good for her.  She runs to Sinclair to celebrate her good fortune, and they end up together again so that thread is tied off neatly.

G’Kar gets ambushed by the courier, now revealed to be the killer. He wakes up wearing some sci-fi restraints and the killer takes some time to enjoy torturing him with them.  Eventually Na’Toth arrives to bluff her way into saving G’Kar.  There is a fun coda to the plotline where they conspire to frame the assassin for taking money to not kill G’Kar.

The final scene is a very 90’s liberal type scene.  Instead of picking one religion from Earth to demonstrate, he manages to round up representatives from dozens of Earth religions in a long line and introduces them to the ambassadors.  It is a nice indicator that Earth still retains all of its different cultures, but it is also kind of hokey.  Then again “kind of hokey” is Babylon 5’s bread and butter so the scene mostly works, though some indications from the other races that they are not one religion planets would have also been kind of nice in the episode.

Next week we explore a bit more about Earth’s culture around telepaths in S1E6 “Mind War”. They get a hell of a pull for a guest star.

A reminder that you can watch the episodes on Amazon Prime, and on Tubi which has the same amount of ads but is subscription free.

The Good

• We get some good looks at the different belief systems.  It also provides a bit of a look at how religious each ambassador is.  Londo does not exactly give off a reverent vibe towards his gods, whereas Delenn takes her ceremony very seriously. 
• I am a huge fan of G’Kar and this episode showcased a lot of the fun sides of the character.  He tends to be a bit of a prima donna but there is some toughness under that exterior. 
• We get to meet Lennier! Bill Mumy doesn’t get much to do in this episode but now it finally feels like we have the whole gang together. 

The Bad

• Michael O’Hare and Juila Nickson don’t have much in the way of chemistry and most of their scenes come across as pretty cringey to me. My 12 year old self also didn’t like this plot as it pulled us away from cool space battles for a bunch of lame romance.
• We miss out on G’Kar’s religion since his B plot takes up his time, which is a strange omission as outside of Delenn G’Kar is one of the most religious characters in the show.
• Londo also comes across as quite cringe when he goes on his drunken tirade about everyone’s cuteness.  I prefer to focus on Vir trying to be a good host and cultural ambassador in that scene which is very true to that character.

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• Another reminder and confirmation that Delenn is a member of the Grey Council.  The reasons for her posting will be important. 
• Delenn’s willingness to undergo a “marriage” ceremony with a human in this episode will be revisited later in the series.
• We start to see some more of G’Kar.  For the most part he is still playing the part of the cartoonish villain, but between this episode and the upcoming “By Any Means Necessary” he will start to be filled out as a character.
• Na’Toth arrives as one actress and then will eventually leave as another actress before coming back as the first.  Apparently the show struggled to find an actress that could handle the heavy makeup process, which meant ditching the first character. JMS talked about how most aspiring TV actresses got jobs based on people liking the way they looked on a show, which hampered their efforts to find someone in their price range who could take the gig permanently.   Eventually the show would drop the aide all together, which makes sense for where G’Kar ends up.
• This is also our first sighting of the Centauri tentacle penises, in the form of the statue of the goddess of passion. The show would regularly reference these things, even down to Londo gesturing to his torso as an equivalent of an American grabbing at his crotch to tell someone to go to hell.