A Voice In The Wilderness, Part 2

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a skyscraper in the sky! Living at the heart of an all powerful machine sounds cool. But, I don’t see any women around, so unless I can make myself tangible in Ivanova’s quarters and get with the Russian lovemaking count me out. Hey, did you know Draal was going to sacrifice himself, it’s not obvious in any way!

Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Directed By: Janet Greek

Bare Essentials:

A Plot - With Varn off planet a ship containing his people show up to claim Epsilon 3 as their own. The Earth Alliance Hyperion Class Heavy Cruiser, The Hyperion, shows up to claim Epsilon 3 as the property of Earth. The tension builds, lots of shouting ensues, but nothing really happens until Draal takes over the machine on Epsilon 3. He declares Epsilon 3 to belong only to itself and blasts the ships of Varn’s people to bits when they try to go against him.

B Plot - Garibaldi gets into contact with his old flame, Lise Hampton. But it turns out she’s pregnant.

More Arc, Less Arch:

It’s not really something that is ever touched upon, but there is an interesting similarity between The Great Machine and Shadow vessels. As we will find out in Ship Of Tears a Shadow vessel contains a living being as its CPU, much like The Great Machine does. Their are obvious differences of course, the beings inside the Shadow vessels are mere shells with no free will or thoughts of their own. The beings inside The Great Machine are completely cognizant and are their of their own free will and can make their own choices. Still, it is an interesting parallel between the two and a slight hint at what was to come with the Shadows.

Various references are made to The Great Machine not being for this time. It’s implied that it is integral to the future, but in actuality it only sees use in War Without End, Parts 1 & 2, Voices Of Authority, and The Long, Twilight Struggle.

Delenn’s line about Sinclair’s destiny lying elsewhere will come to pass in War Without End, Part 2. While the favor she owes Londo will be repaid in A Day In The Strife.

Who Are You? What Do Yo… Hey, I’m Asking The Questions Here!:

Since when can a Commander dismiss a Captain?

Why would Varn be forbidden to ask directly of someone to take his place? That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Why is Londo surprised that Delenn would hold out on him? They don’t have a close relationship and Londo isn’t that trusting of the Minbari.

Idiosyncratic Musings:

Sinclair’s request to Garibaldi that he make sure Ivanova is evacuated secures her place as the little sister of the group. They treat her as an equal at work, but in their personal lives and when the chips are down they do look at her like a little sister and like the one of the three that needs to be protected the most or be given the best chance to continue on.

I See What You Did There:

Varn was at the heart of The Great Machine for 500 years.

Without a guardian in the heart of The Great Machine it will self-destruct, and it will also become more erratic as the health of the guardian wanes.

The Earth Alliance has a colony known as the Vegan Outpost.

Fralis 12 is a planet/city once attacked by the Centauri.

Lise Hampton makes her first actual appearance, she will appear in many more episodes.

The fighting on Mars subsided and the provisional EA government retained control.

Say It Again Mac:

Ivanova, “Worst case of testosterone poisoning I’ve ever seen.”

Londo, “If I were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?”

Garibaldi, “Franz. What the hell kind of a name is Franz?” As a guy that has been there, I so get this.

Lost In Translation:

Ivanova’s “Boom. Boom. Boom.” to Londo is supposed to be funny, it isn’t.

Yes, I Am A Fleet Junkie:

The main workhorse of the Earth Alliance fleet during the Earth-Minbari War finally gets revealed in the Hyperion Class Heavy Cruiser. In this case it is the flagship vessel of the class, the Hyperion herself. The Hyperion Class Heavy Cruiser carries 6 Aurora Class Starfury Heavy Fighters and an armament that consists of 2 particle lasers, 1 heavy plasma cannon, 8 medium pulse cannons, and an array of fusion missiles as well as 10 MK. 1 defense grid energy projectors. The Hyperion carries a crew of 356 and can also support around 200 ground troops. The Hyperion is capable of forming its own jump point, but it does not have the ability to create or sustain gravity. The Hyperion Class Heavy Cruiser is a formidable war vessel and can best almost any war ship from any of the lesser races but it is about equal with the vessels of the Narn and Centauri while well below the capabilities of the Minbari or Vorlon.

The ship from Varn’s people is never named and not a thing is known about its capabilities. It has the ability to break up into smaller pieces and appears to be able to hold its own against both the Hyperion and B5, but that is all that it shows. It does look like a mass of tall buildings grouped together, even when it has split into smaller pieces.

The battle between the enemy ship, the Hyperion and B5 features a cool shot of the interceptors of the Hyperion in action as they repel shots from the enemy craft. The battle itself is fine, although it’s not tactical at all or all that dramatic. Both sides appear to be about even, but since it is a two on one the ship of Varn’s people may be a little more powerful than the Hyperion or B5.

The Great Machine does appear to pack some physical punch when it wipes the ships from Varn’s race out of space with a giant laser, and it does so with ease.

Let’s Go Planet Side:

It is established that Epsilon 3 contains a series of underground passages, fusion reactors, and is one great machine, The Great Machine in fact. There is a sentient being at the heart of the planet that controls the machine. The old controller was Varn, but now with his failing health Draal has taken his place. This would explain a lot of what we saw in the last episode and what we see again in this episode of Epsilon 3.

It’s Your Cultural Imperative:

Varn’s race is never named in any official Babylon 5 material, nor are any specifics ever given about them. They are biped and appear to be able to breathe both oxygen and non-oxygen atmos. They have pockmarked almost non-ears and large bumpy foreheads. It is entirely possible that with the death of Varn and the group of the war ship that came to Epsilon 3 their race is now entirely extinct.

I Think This Might Be Based On Something:

When Takarn scans B5 a lot of words flash on the screen, a few of them are based on something,

FORBIN - Most likely the 1969 genre movie, The Forbin Project.

ORAK - The computer, Orac, from the series Blake’s Seven.

NOMAD - The computer from the episode, Changeling, of Star Trek.

SKYNET - The big bad computer from the Terminator franchise.

MCAULIFEE - In reference to Sharon Christa McAulifee, an astronaut who died in the Challenger explosion of 1986.

The nine C&C screens read out in order, “EYE AM KNOT A NUMBER AYE AMA FREE MAN” and that would be the phrase that defined the TV series, The Prisoner.

When Captain Pierce aborts sending his ships down to Epsilon 3 there is a moment where he turns around and you see a ship in the top left corner that bears the flight number THX-1138, a film by George Lucas.

You Look Mighty Familiar:

Michelan Sisti, Takarn, played the role of or supplied the voice for (I’m not sure) the recurring character of Charlene Sinclair on the TV series, Dinosaurs. He did the same for the character of Michelangelo in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze.

Denise Gentile, Lise Hampton, played the role of Nikki Bellini in the episode Piano Man - November 10, 1985 of Quantum Leap.

Ron Canada, Captain Ellis Pierce, portrayed Quartus, on the episode Bad Guys on Stargate SG-1. He also played Det. Franklin Potter in the X-Files episode, Empedocles. He was Fasek in the Star Trek: Voyager episode, Juggernaut. He was Gabriel Jones in the entirely forgettable movie (well, not if you love bad movies like I do), Nick Fury: Agent Of Shield. He was also in the Star Trek universe again on the episode Rules Of Engagement on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Ch’Pok and in The Masterpiece Society episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation as Martin Benbeck.

Casting Ahead:

Lenore Kasdorf returns for the final time as the ISN Reporter.

Aki Aleong is in for the last time as Sen. Hidoshi.

Curt Lowens returns as Varn.

Louis Turenne is back as Draal.

That Wasn’t Supposed To Happen:

Carrying on from the previous episode I still have a problem with B5 being able to pick up seismic readings from the center of Epsilon 3 when they should never have been able to get to the center of the planet to leave any sensors.

The fact that at the end of the episode Varn can all of a sudden breathe oxygen just fine after needing a breather for all of the previous episode and the first half of part 2 is a bit of a gaffe.

It’s a minor one, and honestly it may not even be a mistake, but the computer that is referenced from Blake’s Seven is spelled Orac and not Orak.

The Ombuds Have Decided:

Much like the first episode, A Voice In The Wilderness, Part 2 is an unfulfilling episode of TV. It’s not a bad episode, but it’s not a good episode. It is unfortunately one of those episodes that ends up being just there and as a result I end up being very indifferent to it. There isn’t anything positive to write about because unfortunately it didn’t do anything that was noteworthy or stood out. That means all there is to talk about are the mishaps or things I didn’t like. I’m not a fan of that but that is what happens more often than not on middling episodes that don’t stand out in any way.

The plotline of Varn appearing only to Sinclair, Londo and Draal because they are the only ones on the entire station that would be willing to sacrifice themselves is a bit far fetched. On a station with a quarter of a million people there is little chance they are the only ones willing to sacrifice themselves, and that entire plot point never worked for me.

Draal’s continued referencing of the 3rd principle of sentient life is a heavy handed way of clubbing you over the head with the fact that he is going to sacrifice himself. It would have been better if he had just sacrificed himself as opposed to the constant foreshadowing of the fact that he was going to in fact sacrifice himself.

The CGI on Londo evading the enemy fire isn’t all that impressive. Because the shuttle is moving so slow it only serves to make the enemy ship look weak. This is an instance where the CGI hurt the believability of the show and detracted from what was going on. This is also the case in two other scenes. First there is the scene where Londo, Draal and Delenn are walking across the great chasm on Epsilon 3. They look incredibly fake and unrealistic and that detracts from the believability of what is going on. Lastly there is the destruction of the enemy ships . Their destruction looks far too clean, with no debris at all left behind and it all comes off a bit hokey.

Rating:

66/100

C

We’re out of the woods now and back to square one, Babylon Squared in fact! Oh, I do kill myself, I really do.

Cheers,
Bill

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