Having lived with cheerful propaganda news stations for most of my adult life, this episode does not hit as hard as it may have when Fox News was in it’s infancy, and right wing media still had the seedy reputation of dwelling mostly on the AM dial. The characters get a shocking introduction to it however in an episode that seems designed to remind the audience and the main characters that despite embarrassments and setbacks Earth is still determined to undermine them in any way they can.
Ivanova and Sheridan meet up in the War Room and discuss the embargo from Earth. Sheridan shares that he is worried about his parents back on Earth, having not heard from them since the embargo started. The idea that President Clark would use them is at the front of his mind.
Down in the docking bay security is fighting with some humans that are refusing to let their bags be searched. Zack intervenes and decides that odd scanner readings are enough to force the group to open up its boxes. Zack shoots the lock of one, and a floating camera comes out as the leader of the group identifies himself as a reporter.
Franklin and Sheridan share a quick scene discussing the frozen telepaths they have in storage, and they both regret that there is still nothing else to be done for them. Sheridan however gets pulled away to talk with Dan Randall from ISN news. After some comedic threatening they get down to business. Sheridan points out that ISN is a propaganda agency, Randall agrees and claims to be a virtuous journalist that is still trying to get real news out, which leads Sheridan and Ivanova to agree to let him do his story.
Garibaldi is busy with his private detective agency, interviewing clients. He quickly sees through his latest client well enough to put the screws to him and get a good deal on a job to find a statue. Lennier drops by to question why Garibaldi left his security job, but they are interrupted by Sheridan and Randall. Sheridan wants Lennier to show Randall around, so that he does not think he is being managed by the station staff. Garibaldi gets to enjoy a brief flashback to his brain washing before leaving to work on the missing statue case.
Lennier dutifully carries out a tour, including Down Below. They see Franklin run by with a heart attack victim, and overhear him communicating with his staff about the cryo units. They also capture Londo yelling at Sheridan concerning the temperature in his quarters. Finally the tour ends in Delenn’s quarters with a sit down interview with Delenn and Sheridan. They discuss their relationship, the war and Babylon 5’s independence. In the process Sheridan and Delenn foolishly provide a couple of quotes that will very clearly be used against them out of context.
Randall eventually finds his way back to Garibaldi, probing him for information. Garibaldi looks reluctant, but clearly he will end up speaking with Randall.
Some time lapses, and we join Sheridan and Ivanova sitting down to eat to watch the ISN story about them. Once some creepy news stories (some of which reference the Red Scare) are addressed we get treated to a pretty awful propaganda piece that is 100% in line with the Clark administration, while being completely untrue. They even bring in a psychiatrist to diagnose Sheridan from afar. In 1996 or 1997 this would have been crazy to see, but in the days of Fox News and OANN it seems pretty standard for the media to be openly supportive of a president acting as a dictator. Sheridan, Ivanova, and Delenn are not as used to this however and are completely outraged. Sheridan in particular is angered by Garibaldi’s interview viewing it, quite rightly, as a betrayal. The episode ends with Sheridan angrily staring out the window as everyone else stalks out of the room.
I like this one as a companion piece to Season 2’s “And Now for a Word”. In that episode, when Clark was still new to the presidency, the propaganda was subtle, and the journalist was mostly playing on the level, even if they certainly had a story in mind and a bias. I enjoy the evolution or devolution of the news media being portrayed there, especially since JMS himself was a journalist that quit out of frustration with editorial decisions. Next week we take a bit of a break from the humans and their bullshit and switch over to the Minbari and their bullshit with a very heavy Delenn episode “Atonement”.
Hard to say where you can find Babylon 5 at the moment(maybe Roku Channel?), but I am continuing on with some pretty good quality downloads from Itunes that I made years ago.
Where do I know them from?
- Jeff Griggs as Dan Randall, I recall seeing him briefly in an episode of Scrubs but otherwise he has not had much of a career.
The Good
- Earth continues to be crappy, and continues to attempt to undermine Babylon 5. The anti-alien(immigrant) hysteria on Earth is also particularly resonate at this time in America.
The Bad
- Garibaldi’s heel turn continues, but I was also disappointed in the other characters and how easily they let themselves say things that were going to be quoted horribly.
Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)
- Clark is walking a bit of a tightrope in how he handles Sheridan, one of the few war heroes of the Minbari War. Going so far as to make up a fake disorder to explain why he would turn against Earth.
- We also get a sneak peek into both how badly things are going on Mars, and how thorough Clark’s purges are being, with him rounding up and torturing actors and writers even.
- I do like Randall’s point about there being no such thing as an objective journalist, even if he is not really a journalist at all.
- Randall probes Delenn and Sheridan about how accepted their relationship is, implying humans would have a problem with it. Next episode we get to see that the Minbari are not super cool about it either.
- I also like that the various nations are still cleaning up after the Shadow War, not many shows would continue to remind the audience of a now dead plot line like that.