After the excitement and drama of The Coming of Shadows, it is somewhat inevitable that we would have a bit of a comedown with the next episode.  Episode 10 pushes us firmly back into the troubles with Earth category of episodes, delivers some decent backstory for Franklin and manages to hit pretty much every single military movie cliche, only minimally subverting them at the end.  Overall an ok episode that has some decent guest actors, though the only significance to the overall arc is one small scene.

Ivanova starts the episode feeling pretty good about how quiet things are.  Corwin absolutely does not get the vibe and manages to be a dweeb before they get interrupted by the arrival of six EarthForce ships.  The ships move to dock, and Sheridan rushes down to meet with General Richard Franklin, played by another scifi luminary Paul Winfield.  The general brusquely demands billets for 25,000 soldiers for several days.  Sheridan then blurts out that he thinks that the doctor must be related to one of the few Black guest actors we have had, and Gen. Franklin lets him know that he is the doctor’s father.  It is a little fun to see Sheridan, the very confident commander be somewhat overwhelmed by the higher ranking officer sweeping in and upending his station, something that Sinclair had to deal with from time to time.

The station quickly fills with the ground pounders, or GROPOS as every calls them.  A stern Sgt. Major played by Ryan Cutrona strolls around barking orders, while all of the soldiers check in by having their DNA read by a machine.  The command staff eventually get a briefing with the general to find out what the hell is going on.  In another moment of “that galaxy is quite small actually” Gen. Franklin had previously served with Alfredo Garibaldi, our security chief’s father.  He also uses this to insult Garibaldi which seemed unnecessarily cruel.  Franklin is at Babylon 5 as a staging area for the military intervention in a small world’s civil war.  Earthforce is sending troops to wipe out a rebel faction and secure a base on the planet.  He also lets them know that the cover story is that the division is being sent to Io, even the soldiers themselves dont know they will be launching a surprise attack on another planet.  

This is where the arc scene happens.  Franklin has brought along a ton of new weapons to be installed on Babylon 5.  The others object to turning Babylon 5 into a more militant station, but the general points out that with a war going on, the station must be able to protect itself.  Sheridan and the others are uncomfortable with the whole situation.

Someone else is more uncomfortable with the whole situation and that is Lt. Keffer, the guy that still totally exists.  He comes back to his quarters to find two privates chilling, PFC Large, played by Ken Foree and Pvt. Yang plates by Art Chudabala. They were assigned to live with him for the duration of their stay.  Keffer is understandably pissed, but eventually manages to hit it off with the other two men.

While Keffer is getting acquainted, Richard and Stephen are getting reacquainted.  Richard inspects the doctor’s quarters, while reporting on Stephen’s sisters.  He even gets out an admonishment to Franklin to call his mother more often.  They have a small discussion that blows up into an argument with very little prompting.  The general sees all aliens as potential threats to Earth and cannot understand his son’s fascination with them and desire to get to know them.  Later, after he blows up at Ivanova, she convinces him to meet up and talk with her about his feelings.

Franklin vents to her about his father being a soldier first, everything else second.  He also transitions to talking about living in fear, not of his father, but of the dangerous situations that his father was constantly in.  Ivanova slips up and tells the doctor to speak with his father, revealing that these soldiers may be heading somewhere dangerous.  

Delenn stops by to confront Garibaldi about the large amount of Earth soldiers on the station.  He gives her the line about Io, and she is somewhat mollified.  Neither of them seem to notice that as they walk and talk, nearly all of the newly arrived soldiers are staring at Delenn. Predictably as soon as Garibaldi leaves a trio of soldiers lead by a particularly mean looking one named Kliest, played by Morgan Hunter, confront Delenn about her hair and threaten to harm her.  Another private named named dodger intervenes before everything is interrupted to by the arrival of the Sgt. Major.  Before punishments are handed down from the irate sergeant, Garibaldi intervenes at Delenn’s request and everything is dropped.  This leads Dodger and Garibaldi kind of hitting it off.

The general and Sheridan are busily planning the assault, and the table top nerd in me loves that they are using a big physical model.  Stephen interrupts, but the conversation devolves into an argument immediately, with Richard venting to Sheridan.  Sheridan of course sticks up for the good doctor and the general leaves, clearly lost in thought.  

Garibaldi and Dodger reconnect, and Garibaldi offers her a tour of Babylon 5, but the aggressive private wants only a good place to eat and then his quarters. Garibaldi manages to spoil a good thing by stopping things and talking about his relationships and problems.  Dodger, who is only on the station for a few days points out she is just looking for a bit of fun before she is off to her next assignment and leaves angrily. 

Ivanova and Sheridan have a brief discussion about the powerful new weapons for the station, and I appreciate that there is even a quick call back to the dockworker’s union leader during their conversation.  Continuity does not always have to be big aggressive plot points.

The general decides to take another run at his son, and this time they manage to break through to each other a little.  I like the general’s line about how a soldier has to remember that their loved ones live with death just like they do. This all leads to a sweet, if pretty much expected moment of reconciliation. 

Things are not so collegial at the bar, where Keffer, Yang, and Large trade war stories and talk about fear, before accidentally setting off a mass bar fight between the station’s military personnel and the visiting troops.  In the midst of this Garibaldi tries to apologize to Dodger, and they get to have some fun together in the melee.  The general comes to interrupt and orders everyone to grab their gear and prepare to be deployed. 

Stephen gets an emotional parting with his father, along with the admonishment to call his mother and sisters more often.  Garibaldi gets his own quick goodbye with dodger, and the troops launch off on their mission.  Later the main characters all gather around to watch the news about the mission.  Here the CGI is pretty weak, but we still get an action sequence of a bunch of ships attacking a fortress.  Franklin is pleased to see his father survived the battle on the news, but everyone else has to wait for the official casualty list.  Garibaldi and Keffer both are devastated by the news that their newfound friends died in the battle, and we get a slow pan over showing that Dodger, Yang, Large and Kliest all died.  

For as much as all the military characters were walking stereotypes, I do appreciate the show deciding to go for the gut punch of showing that, yeah it was a dangerous battle so everyone we met that was a front line soldier died in it. Babylon 5 has a great deal of military scifi in it’s DNA, but it usually tried to make sure that the consequences are shown, and this is a brutal way to end an episode that had introduced so many minor characters. 

Next week we get a fun alien abduction story, that also involves the decline of Minbari society, and the beginning of a virtuous conspiracy against the President.  Check out episode 11, “All Alone in the Night”. 

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

• It was nice for Doctor Franklin to get an episode about his own past, and Paul Winfield is an old pro and able to make a memorable spot.
• The compositing throughout the episode was pretty well done for the budget.

The Bad

• The episode did not meet a military cliche that it didnt like.
• The CGI of the battle scene was a case of trying to be a bit too ambitious.  

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• I think the show misses a step in later seasons by not addressing Franklin’s father and the Earth Civil War.  Even a line or two about what he was up to would have been good.  Hard to peg which side he would have been on from this appearance but I think he would have been a “good” soldier and stayed loyal to the president. 
• Delenn’s hair gets foregrounded again, this time as something that the Earth characters are angry about.  The next episode would show the depth of her own people’s anger.  
• Good thing the station got all those fancy new weapons in time, since things heat up considerably in this season and the next.