1.04
Infection
I usually have something funny, witty, or stupid to say here, but not this time. I will warn you that you are about to enter into a place where most fear to tread, that of Infection, an episode so bad that it almost makes my eyes bleed every time I watch it. Not the good, “Oh, I’m possessed by the Devil” sort of bleeding either, but the “Oh crap, I’m having my period through my eyes” sort of bleeding. Not that I would know anything about having a period. All you women know where to send the hate mail.
Written By: J. Michael Straczynski
Directed By: Richard Compton
Bare Essentials:
A Plot - Vance Hendricks, an old teacher of Dr. Franklin’s, has arrived on station bearing mysterious Ikarran artifacts. These artifacts are of an organic nature and to that end Hendricks assistant, Nelson, killed a customs agent to smuggle them onboard. The artifacts take over Nelson and couple with him to create an Ikarran War Machine. Commander Sinclair is able through reasoning to defeat the War Machine and Franklin learns of his mentors involvement and turns him over to the B5 security forces.
B Plot - Commander Sinclair flings himself into combat without a moments notice once again. This is a disturbing trend that Garibaldi is beginning to notice.
C Plot- An ISN reporter, May Ann Cramer, is on station to interview Commander Sinclair. But, she is having problems getting him to sit down for said interview.
More Arc, Less Arch:
InterStellar Network News, ISN, make their presence known for the first time on B5. They will grow in importance as the series moves on.
EarthForce confiscates the Ikarran artifacts for future study and use, although how this is possible when they turned into magic dust and were never seen again on my screen I don’t know. This shows the EA having an interest in foreign, specifically organic, tech long before President Clark will come into power. This interest will be pushed even more when Clark is in power, but the interest before Clark ties in with the B5 spinoff series Crusade. They had planned on supplying revelations in that series that even at this time forces within the EA were working on foreign organic tech and Shadow tech.
Who Are You? What Do Yo… Hey, I’m Asking The Questions Here!:
In a self contained station such as B5, why are there no cameras in the docking bays?
Franklin discovers that the Ikarran War Machines were used against a dangerous foreign enemy over a thousand years ago. Was that enemy the Shadows?
If Franklin knows the quarantine process so well then why doesn’t he further question Hendricks on his quarantine story?
Idiosyncratic Musings:
Infection deals with a couple of issues, one badly, the other in quite a good fashion. The first and most prevalent issue is that of purity and the idea of what is and isn’t pure. This idea is a simple one, and despite that fact the show spent 45 minutes hammering home the idea that there is no such thing as a pure being. This isn’t a point that needs to be hammered home, everyone should get that fairly easily, and if you don’t then you are an idiot.
The second and far better issue was that of a man with nothing to live for. Because Sinclair feels he has nothing to live for he is searching for something worth dying for, and that is the opposite of how someone should live their life. Sinclair himself acknowledges this, and this once again presents a philosophical and introspective side to a commanding officer in a sci-fi show that you normally wouldn’t get. His acknowledgment somewhat ties in with the first issue as it presents the very valid and true idea that we aren’t perfect beings. Even at our best we make mistakes and we struggle with life. Sinclair struggles with life every day, he knows he is living his life the wrong way, but he can’t, at this time, figure out how to deal with that fact.
I See What You Did There:
Lloyd’s of London, a famous insurance brokerage company in the present day is still around in 2258.
Interplanetary Expeditions, IPX, gets a mention as the company funding Dr. Hendricks’ digs.
Any organic material brought aboard Babylon 5 must be quarantined for 48 hours.
Garibaldi references he and Sinclair meeting for the first time and then having to walk 50 miles out of the desert. This story is portrayed in the Babylon 5 comics issues #5-9.
Garibaldi was fired five times before landing his job as Chief Of Security on B5. This shows that while he is a member of the command staff he is outside the basic military structure.
Franklin makes mention of a pro-Earth anti-alien group back home. This would be the Home Guard, a group we will see more of soon.
Say It Again Mac:
Susan Ivanova to the ISN reporter as she tries to brush past her to get to Sinclair, “Don’t, you’re too young to experience that much pain.”
Lost In Translation:
Ikarran War Machine proving that it is also a melodramatic machine, “Ikaaaaaaraaaaaa! Great Maker forgive us this madness. Forgive us.”
It’s Your Cultural Imperative:
Ikarran artifacts are bio-organic, over 1,000 years old and can form together to create an Ikarran War Machine. The artifacts slowly change their host into the War Machine, resulting in a final full body almost crab armor look. Upon removal of the chest artifact the host returns to their normal state.
The War Machines, twelve in total, were designed to kill any impure beings on Ikarra 7, and since you can’t define purity, they killed all the invaders and then the Ikarrans themselves. After this with no one to maintain them they slowly rotted away until only this lone machine was left.
I Think This Might Be Based On Something:
Sinclair drops a Shakespeare quote on all of us, from King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…”
Vance Hendricks references the H.G. Wells novel, The War Of The Worlds, when he tells Franklin that a Martian War Machine is at the door and wants to ask him about the common cold. In Wells’s book the Martian War Machines were stopped when exposed to a common Earth virus.
Ivanova brings some Santayana, an American philosopher, to bare when she says, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This is from his book, The Life Of Reason.
You Look Mighty Familiar:
Marshall Teague, Nelson, will make many more appearances in B5 as well as in Crusade. Outside of B5 some of his genre work would include some episodes of Sliders as General Kronus, Stargate SG-1 as Colonel Frank Cromwell and he was in the Star Trek: Voyager episode Distant Origin as Haluk, as well as the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode Hippocratic Oath as Temo’Zuma. Out of genre, or maybe this is in the genre, his most notable role was as Colonel Davis in Armageddon.
David McCallum, Dr. Vance Hendricks, has been on NCIS for the past few years as Dr. Donald Mallard. Genre wise he appeared in the SeaQuest DSV episode SeaWest as Frank Cobb. He played Steel for the entire six season run of Sapphire & Steel. He also played Dr. Westin in the short lived The Invisible Man series in the late 70’s. He is most recognized for his role as Illya Kuryakin for the entire run of The Man From U.N.C.L.E..
That Wasn’t Supposed To Happen:
Franklin tells Hendricks that he did some digging and he wasn’t able to find out anything about IPX, it’s a company that doesn’t exist, and later Hendricks says IPX is a front for a bio-weapons supplier. Both of these statements contradict what we will learn about IPX later in the series. It’s large presence in both the movie Thirdspace and throughout the spin-off series Crusade prove it to be a legitimate and ruthless archaeological company. The later seasons, as well as the book The Shadow Within have them openly active and well known before this episode even takes place, and that heavily contradicts what Franklin asserts about the company.
The War Machine goes from frying people on the spot and burning it’s way through hull doors to barely hurting Sinclair when it hits him with a blast and not even scratching a glass partition with a blast. Very inconsistent, and there is more inconsistency in the War Machine’s ability to instantly blast through a hull door in one scene and then in a later scene it takes the War Machine a long time to blast through the hull door.
The War Machine removes its chest piece and destroys it. This causes it to instantly revert back to its host form of Nelson. But somehow the armor all magically disappears in that split second and is nowhere to be seen when the camera pans to show Nelson on the ground. This scene requires far too much suspension of disbelief to be any good.
In the end when the War Machine kills itself and it falls to the ground its head is facing left, away from the camera. But, when Sinclair looks down at Nelson in human form his head is facing right, towards the camera.
Franklin makes the point that the program inside the War Machine completely overrides its host. But, later Franklin tries to suggest that the artifact chose to bond with Nelson because it wanted someone that it knew would kill. These two statements are extremely contradictory.
The Ombuds Have Decided:
Infection is an episode that gets off to a bad start and never lets up. There are continuity errors and mistakes galore throughout the episode. The acting is wooden and other than the final scene between Garibaldi and Sinclair, not one actor seems like they know what to do with their fellow actor standing next to them.
The CGI as the Ikarran artifact takes over Nelson and infuses his face with some sort of green energy looks incredibly cheesy. I think the green energy was supposed to run through his veins, but instead it looks like it is merely hovering near his face. Later the Ikarran War Machine kills two men it confronts and they leave a char outline against the wall where it blasted them, and that also looks incredibly cheesy. Finally, the War Machine itself looks bad, it’s big and clunky and looks like a dude in a rubber suit.
This episode also highlights a problem with Michael O’ Hare as an actor. He is great at portraying the quiet intimate moments that require lots of thought and introspection. But, he can’t pull off action scenes in any convincing fashion. In this episode he was constantly in action mode until the end and that made the episode very stiff and hard to get into because his character wouldn’t allow you to get into the action.
This episode also suffers in its writing. The idea of purity and how it can be defined could be approached from a subtle view and be done justice. But JMS chose to go the heavy handed preachy route and from the moment they reveal the truth behind the Ikarran War Machine you are hit over the head with the idea that purity can not be defined or labeled.
The scene between Garibaldi and Sinclair where Garibaldi confronts Sinclair about his death wish is powerful stuff. It confirms how deep and real their friendship is while at the same time establishing how lost Sinclair really is. Both men displayed good acting in the scene and the writing was spot on. This unfortunately is the only part of the entire episode that works.
This is an episode that never has the chance to get going, and even its one shining piece of work, the scene with Garibaldi and Sinclair at the end, is not enough to save it. If this episode didn’t have a couple of key foreshadowing moments then it is an episode that I would highly recommend only hardcore B5 fans check out. Even then I would still suggest that you watch it with reservations.
Rating:
40/100
F
That’s it for this installment, next time we will delve into The Parliament Of Dreams.
Cheers,
Bill