If Babylon 5 could be said to have a Halloween episode it would be this one.  A mysterious derelict ship, an ancient enemy, and a red herring survivor all combine for a decently spooky episode that is let down somewhat by the limitations of the effects.  Between some scares and some good atmosphere we also get another little hint at the gathering darkness of season 2.  

The episode starts us off right in the action, as Ivanova briefs Sheridan on a mysterious ship that has entered Babylon 5 space. It is coming from an angle that indicates that it did not use a jump gate and is broadcasting a message in English.  While they work on that we jump to down below where a lurker, played in a wonderfully unhinged manner by Dwight Schultz, wakes up screaming and digging through his clothes for drugs. He starts to have a breakdown and runs screaming through the corridors as we jump to credits. 

The lurker begins doomsday preaching in the Zocalo, accosting G’Kar and Londo and generally irritating everyone until Garibaldi calmly arrests him for proselytizing without a license.  Garibaldi comes on up to C&C in time for Sheridan to figure out that what they have on their hands is a pre-jump gate exploration vessel called the Copernicus that has been drifting for over 100 years.  

The whole command crew decides to board the ship and look around, finding two cryo units.  One contains a mummified corpse and the other a beautiful woman.  Her signal starts weakening so Franklin decides to open the unit and bring her into Medlab. I enjoy the shrieking noise that the characters decide to ignore when the unit is opened, as well as the flickering lights on the elevator, the show is trying hard to set that haunted house vibe.  The vibe gets deeper when Ivanova is alone in the ship and something seems to be watching her.

Garibaldi bounces back to his other plot, where one of his men casually declares that they should kill all of Babylon 5’s homeless, putting him basically on par with modern law enforcement.  Garibaldi pegs the lurker’s nightmare as being related to the Minbari War, indicating that he also still has nightmares about the war.  The lurker eventually wakes up being somewhat bashful about his actions. He also denies dreaming at all and practically flees when Garibaldi suggests that he speak to a counselor.

In Medlab Franklin eventually wakes the patient and reassures her, while Ivanova thickens the plot by reporting that there is no mechanical reason that the other passenger should be dead.  Franklin adds to the mystery by indicating that the deceased’s organs are missing, with no sign of them on the ship.  Garibaldi jumps to murder, and even Sheridan is suspicious of the survivor even if Franklin is not.  He speaks with the survivor a woman named Mariah Cirrus, played by Anne-Marie Johnson.  He tries to sugarcoat the fact that she has been in stasis a long time, but she is not having it.  He also has to let her know that her husband Will is dead and that the death is something of a mystery.

Franklin takes her out and fills her in on some of the history she missed. G’Kar swings by to scare the crap out of her and she ends up passed out in Franklin’s quarters, which he claims were closer than Medlab.  He also questions her about her bad dreams and lets her know she is a suspect in the murder.  She tries to end the discussion by making out with Franklin, who gently rebuffs her. 

Amis the lurker breaks into the docking area and seems to recognize the Copernicus.  He begins another doomsday sermon, but this time when Garibaldi interrupts he is still lucid, insisting that a soldier of darkness came aboard the station on the Copernicus.  While Amis is filling him in, an unseen creature kills an alien in Down Below. 

Franklin examines the dead alien and concludes that it died the same way Will did.  At this point the episode does some smart things that I like in this kind of story.  Garibaldi starts theorizing that whatever came on the station could be so new, and so alien that their scans wouldn’t pick it up.  He also double checked Amis’s story against the records showing that the ship passed by where Amis was stationed during the war.  He also suggests that Mariah may not really be Mariah.  Sheridan sides with Garibaldi before getting called away to discuss the problem with the council.  

The council is not operating with 100% rationality and they are demanding that Mariah be removed since she brought some kind of evil with her to the station.  Londo is kind of a dick about it when he mocks the Markab ambassador but I kind of have to side with him on this one.  The Markab ambassador talks about the war against evil long ago, and how that evil is now recalling its forces.  I love Londo’s response to all of this, suggesting that if something came aboard just find it and kill it. Sheridan is sympathetic to the aliens, but bristles when the ambassador threatens to kill Mariah if she is not removed.

Garibaldi is having his own nightmare that prompts him to rouse Amis from the brig, and go hunting for the alien.  While they look they both tell war stories.  Garibaldi’s is suitably depressing, having fought in a war that humanity lost.  Amis’s is more of a campfire story about the alien coming and killing his recon unit while they camped in the ruins of an old temple.  Schultze manages to sell the hell out of this bit, making the story decently eerie.  He caps off his story by running off into the dark to try and find the creature on his own.  

Franklin and Mariah have a conversation while standing in the ship.  She admits that she and her husband were having problems, but she also indicates that she wants to find whatever killed him just the same.  Garibaldi asks her to help find Amis and the creature.  It apparently works off screen, so Sheridan and Ivanova go monster hunting as well.  The creature looks like a bunch of lightning, but it at least doesn’t seem to like being shot, so Sheridan decides to shoot it as much as possible.  Amis lets himself be used as bait to draw it out and they seemingly manage to kill it.  I guess that makes Londo right after all you just need to find it and kill it. 

After all the dust settles, Amis seems to be done with bad dreams, Mariah decides to head back to Earth, and Ivanova discovers that the Copernicus had been reprogrammed to head toward the rim, toward Z’ha’dum.  The discovery unsettles Sheridan and Ivanova, and our last shot of the episode is G’Kar reading his holy book which has a page dedicated to the thing that they just defeated, from 1000 years ago. 

Next week we get into some conspiracy politics with A Spider in the Web.  It has creepy cyborg assassins, intrigue between Mars and Earth and Adrienne Barbeau! Hell it even has an appearance by Jessica Walter.

As always, a reminder that you can watch the episodes on Tubi with ads.  It is apparently back on Amazon Prime, but Tubi is free and their ad breaks are smaller. 

The Good

• I love a good haunted house story, and I like it more when the characters are smart.  I really appreciate Garibaldi and Londo’s reactions to the situation.
• The guest actors are strong on this one, and Dwight Schultz really delivers a squirrely performance as the traumatized Amis. 
• I like that they also are able to tie this in with the other episodes with that final reference to Z’ha’dum, giving a sense that something is building. 

The Bad

• The CGI is what it is.  Maybe they had a better plan and were let down, or maybe they thought this looked ok.  It would have been nice to have a clearer picture of what the monster looked like though. 
• Missed Delenn on this one, even a short appearance at the council would have been nice.  This is the second week that has been quite light on her. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• Servants of the Shadows are always bad news and these guys are no exception.  It would have been nice at some point to get more of an explanation of exactly what it was and how it served the Shadows or even a chance to see one again later.
• The Markab ambassador gets foregrounded here, which at episode 5 is a nice bit of preparation for the central role that race will take in episode 18.
• G’Kar’s book has a wealth of information, making it strange that it takes the characters so long to realize that it could be helpful to them.