Now we are in the home stretch of Season 1.  There were some wobbly episodes in the middle, and some so so performances from the main cast (Jerry Doyle) and some of the guest actors, but this is the start of a strong finish, with three episodes that have good sci-fi stories, are important to the arc of the series and feature some solid performances.  Babylon Squared is a fun story, because it is a time travel adventure from the perspective of the people that have to deal with the time travelers, who are traveling involuntarily which is not typically how these things go.  It also begins to fulfill a promise from JMS in his writing.  JMS is a fan of what we would now call mystery boxes.  Why did the Minbari surrender before destroying Earth? What happened to Sinclair when he blacked out? What happened to Babylon 4?  The main selling point for JMS’s writing is that he does not introduce a box that he doesn’t already have a plan for opening, even a minor season long mystery like Babylon 4.

The episode opens with a bit of light heartedness.  It has been established that Ivanova hates mornings and is always slow to wake, so Sinclair and Garibaldi take advantage. Sinclair bores her to sleep, and then they both pretend to have finished breakfast, and that she is now late to start her shift. A silly little prank but it shows that after a year all the characters have gotten to know each other pretty well. 

The levity is broken up by a pilot reporting in to Ivanova.  He had been sent to investigate strange activity in Sector 14, and dies screaming right before the credits roll.  Poor bastard didn’t even get a name.

We come back to Ivanova trying to get in contact with the fighter.  They can see that it is coming back to base, but have no contact with the pilot. When the fighter finally makes it back it is clear that it is on autopilot and the pilot is dead.  Turns out he died of extreme old age.  Sinclair decides to warn everyone off of the area and investigate the returned fighter.  Garibaldi finds that the pilot scratched “B4” into his belt buckle before he died.  As everyone is processing that, C&C receives a distress call from Babylon 4.  Sinclair answers, playing cagey with his identity, and agrees to assist in evacuating Babylon 4. 

Sinclair gives all the pilots the standard speech allowing them to decline the mission if they want. As is typical no one volunteers to stay behind and everyone launches off on the mission. Garibaldi ponders how many people fasten then zip their pants vs zip then fasten, which weirds out Sinclair.  I do like the dig about “not every conversation has to be the end of the world” and it is a neat little idle chit chat scene for a show that tends to be very epic in scope.  

Garibaldi and Sinclair decide to check out the station first, and are greeted by a crazed crew member with a gun, screaming about monsters.  After subduing the gunman they are greeted by Major Krantz the construction supervisor for Babylon 4, played by Kent Broadhurst.  I quite enjoyed seeing him, as he is in one of my favorite werewolf movies, Silver Bullet.   Sinclair rips the bandaid off quickly and reveals that they are from Babylon 5.  Then it is time for Sinclair to get hit with a time flash forward.  He and Garibaldi are fighting a desperate battle against an unseen enemy, and it does not look it is going well.  Krantz explains that everyone is getting these flashes, sometimes forward and sometimes backwards, which explains the unstable crewman.

Krantz also introduces Sinclair to the other odd thing to happen to the station, an alien of an unknown race that calls himself Zathras.  Tim Choate’s performance sometimes splits fans of the show, but he certainly gives it his all as the eccentric fur wearing alien that is somehow related to the station moving through time.  Zathras appears to recognize Sinclair, before sitting back down and muttering “not the one”. 

Zathras explains that someone has asked him to arrange to steal the station through time to help fight in a great war against the darkness.  The listening humans don’t really buy it, but they are interrupted by an apparition wearing the space suit from 2001.  Sinclair impulsively goes to touch hands with the suited figure and gets thrown across the room.  The distraction lets Zathras give the figure something that causes it to disappear. 

The evacuation goes into overdrive, while Krantz and Sinclair take another crack at interrogating Zathras.  Zathras lets them know that if he stays he dies, and if he goes he dies as he gave the suited figure his time stabilizer. Krantz insists they take Zathras as proof that something crazy happened, but he ends up pinned beneath a pillar and they leave him behind.  Garibaldi meanwhile gets hit by his own time flash that takes him back to his break up with Lise on Mars.

Zathras then gets saved by the suited figure, which turns out to be an older, scarred Sinclair.  He speaks to someone off screen that he tried to warn them, and Delenn’s voice and arm come into the scene to reassure him. 

While all the time travel shenanigans are going on, Delenn is off on an errand of her own, visiting with her fellow grey council members.  Everything is suitably ritualistic, down to Delenn getting dressed in her official regalia before coming into the darkened chamber where the council conducts business.  Turns out she has been summoned back to the council because they want to offer her the leadership of the whole council. Since this means that she will never go back to Babylon 5 she is hesitant, valuing her mission to watch over Sinclair. 

Delenn reconvenes the council to reject their offer by giving a speech about the promise of humanity.  It keeps where she needs to be, but it is clear that it damages her standing with her own government. They eventually vote to allow her to continue at Babylon 5.  Her ally on the council gives her a parting gift of a triluminary, once of the Minbari people’s holy relics. 

Sinclair and Ivanova get a nice little scene to end the episode comparing Babylon 4 to the Flying Dutchman, implicit in the comparison is the idea that they may see Babylon 4 again. 

Next week we get a look at the criminal justice system, and the health care system of Earth in The Quality of Mercy.  But more importantly we get Londo and Lennier’s Excellent Adventure, complete with a look at Centauri genitalia.

As always, a reminder that you can watch the episodes on Tubi with ads.

The Good

• I like the ways that the show used what they had available to create Babylon 4.  Particularly how they switched the background color from blue to green throughout the station, and how they made some sections look not quite finished. 
• I like the concept that time travel is incredibly dangerous with tons of side effects.  Too often sci-fi makes it seem pretty straight forward.

The Bad

• As I mentioned above Tim Choate is polarizing.  I think for this outing Zathras is fine, but later on he becomes a bit much. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• The first appearance of Babylon 4, which will return in Season 3.  Before budgets and actors quitting interfered originally Babylon 5 would be destroyed during the show, and Babylon 4 would reappear.  The B4 station was supposed to be mobile and it would have set our characters on a new adventure. 
• Babylon 4 being much larger then Babylon 5 continues the arc of Babylon 5 being built on the cheap.
• Delenn gets her triluminary here that she uses on the guards in Legacies, as the episodes were shown out of order.  Not really a big deal.
• Old Sinclair and Delenn both are part of the hijinks in the Season 3 two parter “War Without End”. 
• Delenn’s story also points to more problems in the Minbari government.  We now have bad things happening at home for the Minbari, the Centauri and Earth.  At least the Narn are pretty united in their desire for revenge. 
• Ivanova insists that she get to go if something like this happens again. The next time the station shows, she gets to go and Garibaldi has stay behind.