Trivia: the alien in the tube was played by Doug Jones. The bullet trains were actually in the first episode. They chose to change the uniform to match the ship, rather than the ship itself. Changing your password every 90 days has always been stupid advice; the industry has finally come around to that and official guidelines have (mostly) been changed. It's far more important that you use different passwords for each place you need one [disclosure: a lot of my job is IT Security] The unknown noise sounded a lot like a zipper in the dryer. RIP, Patti Yasutake (actress who played Nurse Ogawa). She died a few weeks ago. The guard was turning away because he was withdrawing into the tram car. I never thought he moved to shield Max, either. Remember that Gideon couldn't hear the whole "I know where to find it." That was all in the alien's head. How the plague works will be explained later. It's not as simple as first suggested. The whole "trust me" bit was definitely a writing tool to build dramatic tension. The best explanation I can offer is that Eilerson wanted to check with the doctors that the guard would survive long enough for the plan to work, THEN told Matheson. Decompression doesn't happen quite that fast; the end-effect would be...ugly...but not explosive. It definitely wouldn't happen the way they show, but they also couldn't show what would actually happen (either because of effects limitations, or TV decency rules). Your blood will boil away, and your eyes will pop out of their sockets. The idea was supposed to be that Wells was running to the airlock to try and get into a suit (like on the other ship they transferred into one person in the tube), but found someone already in a suit and transferred to him because it was faster. I can't recall if Dr. Chambers is military; she may be a civilian. 65 Starfleet is ridiculously officer-heavy. Even a Ford-class carrier, which for a ship is very officer-heavy due to the air wing, only has 508 officers vs 3789 enlisted. P.S.: Brent, hope the hurricane didn't affect you too badly.

Speaking to the way the doctor talks to Capt. Gideon. My wife is a civilian in the military but due to her responsibility for budgeting in her area, she is accorded a measure of respect. She would not undermine the chain of command when lower ranks were present, but the Chief of Army had a nickname for her, and she was allowed to use his nickname. There is a different level of formality.

Love your attitude, Brent. Enjoying it for what it is, not trying to make it into Citizen Kane like some fans or being a bored, pretentious asshat because it's not.

The Triluminary is the one Sinclair used in the chrysalis device. It's keyed to his DNA. This is a pre-destination paradox. They chose him, the Great Machine made the device for him to use, he goes back with it and becomes Valenn, they use it to scan him after his capture and it reacts to his DNA. They chose him as commander of B5, he ends up on Minbar, goes to B4 and takes it back on time - the cycle completes. It also reacts to Delenn because she is a descendant of Valenn and so shares some of Sinclair's DNA.

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Jeff: "The body needs all the parts it has." Me: "What about the appendix?"

Surviving vacuum. Pressure difference: Divers experience "the Bends" when they rise from the higher pressure depths of water to the lower pressure surface too quickly. The quick reduction of pressure causes their blood to boil. The same thing happens when exposed to vacuum. But the pressure difference is only 1 atm... it isn't very much. Divers experience a much greater pressure difference. So you won't explode as your body is strong enough to contain your internal pressure. But you will swell. And your blood will boil... as in the Bends. Useful consciousness: You can't hold your breath... the air in your lungs will be pulled out of you... and then your lungs will work in reverse to pull gas out of your blood. When airline planes depressurize at altitude the passengers have about 20-30 seconds of useful consciousness to put on the oxygen masks. That's basically the same as being exposed to vacuum. You can survive longer than you can remain conscious. I would say about 1-2 minutes maximum.

you know... I think it's possible you may be a bit over stating the "paint by numbers" nature of this... because you've seen versions of this story... that came out after this. I, myself have seem many versions of this... but as I sit here thinking about it... Every one I can think of came out after this. Can anyone think of an example that came before this? I wonder where the inspiration came from... could this be close to the origin of the trope and not a paint by numbers version?

Why did Wells become the spokesperson? How about this? What is transfered is the same alien essence that contains everything about the species, but it doesn't replace the personality of the new host. It combines with it, so the resulting entity is part the original. That part includes personality and existing skills. So Wells, as the consumate surviver and manipulate, who among the rest of the converts would be more qualified?

Did anyone else see the ending coming from the second the doctor said the dude was brain dead? There was zero reason to keep his body alive except for the plot contrivance.

"I will meet you in the Mutai,' 🤣🤣🤣.

Sorry am I wrong but isn't episode 3 the well of sorrows? This is episode 8

I always thought this episode was just a parody of Star Trek. The overacting of John Vickory as he stumbling to the airlock, reminded me so much of Kirk. Way too much overacting, way too much old sci-fi tropes. It was a parody of Star Trek.

Gideon had mag boots on. Because remember in one of the first episodes with Sheridan, he was walking out to the edge of the spiky things on the end of Babylon 5 just so he could get some air. Gideon was a explorer ship captain, it would follow that he would have access to such boots.

When the alien exploded, a shape came out of the flames… Was that similar to the one that was on the USS Kopernikus in the long dark?

JMS is so determined to reboot B5, I wonder why he hasn’t thought of rebooting Crusade instead. B5 was pretty well complete…Crusade, definitely not.

You're not supposed to like Eilerson. He's basically the Rodney McKay of Crusade. I suspect, like Rodney, there was a plan to soften him over time as a character arc, but since the series was cancelled, it never came to pass.

Email sent explaining the history of my screen name! Too funny to hear the first attempts at saying it but by the end, you both got it right! "Done Drah Doll!"

65!

I hope you can start doing 2 of these per week, because 15 years is a long time to wait until the end of Stargate...

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breaking out the initech mug for Lumburg

The reality is that regular password changing is a good practice.

You saw who is doing the science advising for this? It's NASA JPL.

The big mouth scream is a reference to invasion of the body snatchers.

How much better would crusade be if rescored?

In a vacuum, a human body would not "explode"; it has greater durability than that. Within that first minute (until you pass out early on and eventually die within 2 minutes), you will have capillaries rupturing all over your skin surface (so lots of hematomas and relatively minor exposed bleeding), followed by heating within the body (lots of gas bubbles) and freezing where the air and fluids are leaving the body (from evaporation). A person would also start to lose control over bladder and bowels, and muscles would expand and seize up causing further blood pooling.

My read on the alien suddenly knowing about a cure is that we're just hearing their internal monologue. We haven't seen them use telepathy and they're trapped in a body that can't physically speak, so Gideon can't hear it anyway. I think it was just a way to add a teensy bit of overall plot spice to an otherwise pretty standalone episode.

The last words/thoughts of the alien were pretty damn important.... "... I know what you are looking for. I can tell you where to find it." The alien knew how to find the cure to the Drahk plague.

A good friend who was in charge of the reactor on the sub told me to read Blind Man's Bluff to understand submarine culture, have you read it and do you agree? Did you have a nick name? He had one, the called him Budda, because he was the keeper of the Great Machine.

Captain's Mast is the Navy term for an Article 15: Summary Non-Judicial Punishment. Max penalty of an Article 15 varies by the rank of the officer issuing the penalties but maxes at demotion to E-1 (if E-4 or below) or two pay grades if E-5 or above, forfeiture of up to 1/2 of pay and allowances for up to three months, 30 days confinement/brig time, 60 days extra duty, 60 days confinement to barracks when not on duty,

You know who Eilerson reminds me of a lot? (slight spoiler for Jeff) McKay from SGA. And yet McKay over time becomes a fan favorite. You're supposed to hate Eilerson, but over time I'm sure we would start liking him.

I think one of my favourite moments of a character being more than they were initially presented as was Landry Clark in Friday Night Lights. He never stopped being a bit odd, a bit naive about the world and stuck in his own perceptions, but he went well beyond being the kind of joke side-kick he was initially presented as

65 ... there was an outro?

Oh, the first 8 episodes are the add on - episode 9 was the original first episode before the execs got involved. BTW - do you want to know anything about the Telepath War? If not, I shall stay silent, but if you would like a bit of info, I'll be happy to give the little bit I know.

I think that Kevin was very intentionally a stereotype for a good reason, the whole point to him was to first let the audience [a 90s audience that is] react to him as that stereotype so that he is discounted and seen as useless, so that when he actually turns out to be very important it hits the audience. He was there so that JMS could try and move public perception about the LGBTQ community forward in a positive way. To do that, though, required first starting where the majority of the 90s audience was starting because you can't change people if you don't first connect to them.

the body doesn't explode because it is only 1 atmosphere difference - you are thinking more deep ocean where there are many atmospheres difference - except deep ocean is reversed since the outside is higher pressure so you implode. But when exposed to hard vacuum, you don't explode - though after a short time your blood, etc, will start to boil. The science is actually not bad [I watched a detailed breakdown of the science of a bode in hard vacuum done by a NASA scientist talking about Total Recall, which also has this kind of situation] - oh, and the time factor is 1.5 minutes to 2 minutes in hard vacuum.

Decompression from one atmosphere is not as severe as you think. It is far worse with divers with the bends with many times the decompression. Freezing, bruising and some blood boiling are the main factors. Eyes may want to pop and lungs may collapse but if air is restored in a few minutes most issues can be treated in short order. Oxygen loss is what kills.

When given the choice between fighting or "making them someone else's problem" - Gideon was more a soldier than a politician.

the alien is more like a virus

Jeff - @ 30 minutes, you just managed to counter your own stand. When the government set up a meaningless response to 9/11 it was to help calm the public - it was a waste of money and all that, but it WAS what the government did. Same thing here - so what they did IS exactly the thing the government would do.

Didn't you see the changes in the look of the ship? They changed the Gunmetal Grey to Battleship Grey 🐒- actually, any changes to the ship would take more time, producing the new uniform, or rather a sample uniform, would be done pretty quick. I honestly don't remember, but if they do change the ship, we wouldn't see it in this episode.

That scream was just like in the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers when the pod people identify a real person - so much so that I think it was done as a nod to that. I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I think the scream might actually be the same - certainly the super wide open mouth is.

I'd say Gideon's solution was both classic Sinclair (trick them) *and* classic Sheridan (blow them up) at the same time. Consider that this episode was written as an insert to explain the uniform change between the (original) red and grey uniforms and the (TNT mandated) black uniforms, and it's not half bad, managing to slip in some classic SF tropes on the way. Not as inverted as is often the case with a JMS script - the alien mind force thing was still fundamentally malevolent.

65!

TNT and their uniforms.... a lot of the story was JMS ridiculing TNT and their demands. It's not the only time in the series.

"The needs of the many" always rings the same as politicians and tyrants using the phrase "For the greater good." to me. I think the reason they used such a generic name as Unobtainium (besides the sci-fi nod) was to show how generic and interchangable the thing they were after in Avatar. It wasn't a specific thing, it was a mindset of "We want/need it and can take it."

I still say, if you like TKO, you need to see its prelude, Arena.

I think this episode shows how much Crusade was going to be a mix between B5 and SG1, and it allows for more SG1 style humor in some of its stories.

From what I've heard, the uniform change was forced on them by TNT. JMS planned to have a massive "laundry accident" on the ship for S2 and go back to the other uniforms.