Brent Watches Between the Darkness and the Light - Babylon 5 For the First Time | episode 04x19

[@tomcopple7633]

It was cut, but my favorite line was Vir's "politics and morality on the same side? that doesn't happen everyday."

[@starwolf99]

Babylon 5 is now officially 30 years old, and it STILL holds up!

[@floydmorgan6048]

The guys were saying they weren't veteran B5 podcasters; I thought to myself "not until they hear a certain speech from Ivonova, THEN they're veterans!"

[@Milleniumlance]

Favorite susan line, "God sent me "

[@sharkdentures3247]

"What do you want?" Vir actually gave the CORRECT answer to that question! "Who are you?" Ivonnava actually gave the CORRECT answer to that question! (in THIS episode)

[@ianstopher9111]

Technically she was asked Who is this? but I will concede that it gave her the chance to do her long spiel.

[@Asehpe]

I KNEW Brent would immediately laugh at Lyta saying "PAIN!" to the prison guard. I have been waiting for it, and I hope you guys talk about it in the discussion next Monday! Please! Or else: PAIN!

[@ianstopher9111]

And last week we had the pain givers.

[@geoffharper8650]

The first time seeing the shadow - omega destroyers was SHOCKING .

[@kevinsullivan2153]

They were perfect. With new tech you ideally want new ship designs (like the White Stars), but if you're in a hurry you take what advances you can reproduce and graft them onto existing designs.

[@Muck006]

Still STUPID ships ... because the weapons are only able to fire "in a plane" ... and you could simply attack from above and be outside their firing arc. They mentioned "two-dimensional thinking" in *WRATH OF KHAN* already ... but Hollywood writers/film makers havent learned one bit.

[@Psi105]

The 'pain' thing makes a lot of sense to me. Pushing the word pain deep into the person head telepathically could easily cause them to flashback and relive their most painful memory.

[@TheRobertLcollins]

This aired at least a couple of months after the last one. It was hard but we waited. Ivanova's speech is great. But I also remember how shocked I was seeing the EarthForce ships with Shadow tech. That was an awful revelation. Eager to hear what you both have to say about this one.

[@erinjean6936]

I cried bitter tears at the end of this ep all those years ago. What a memory.

[@cadleo]

This episode, and the next, are one of the many reasons that B5 is the best Sci Fi show ever made.

[@JRcomments]

and the one before...and the one before....and....

[@Scimarad]

There are some great lines in this episode. Ivanova's of course but I also like that guards 'cultural wasteland' comeback:)

[@Seeber420]

Shadow Omegas, my favorite B5 ships.

[@CurtisAST]

After watching your last show for 4x19 I had to watch this one right away, and I couldn't stop until the end of the season, even though I'm a long time B5 fan, I HAD to watch it. I was not disappointed.

[@skumleren]

As for the rapid cutting in the editing, I'm almost 100 they were used digital editing, couldn't quite find the source, but almost 100%. Good episode.

[@KeithDCanada]

I liked that they didn't kill Ivanova outright.... they gave it a simmer to have her interact with Sheridan. It gave me Spock/Kirk vibes from the end of Khan.

[@theknave69]

Could you imagine if this was the season finale?

[@ianstopher9111]

Not until they commit her body to the deep and the bagpipes play Amazing Grace.

[@Nikioko]

5:51: “We don’t know what to do about Humans. Of all the species we’ve made contact with, yours is the only one we can’t define. You have the arrogance of Andorians, the stubborn pride of Tellarites; one moment, you’re as driven by your emotions as Klingons, and the next you confound us by suddenly embracing logic.” Ooops, wrong franchise...

[@dawg897]

" I am Susan Ivoniva.... Death incarnate... I was sent by God"

[@eyallev]

(9:10) "can't lyta just go like *pain* and get them all done?" no, it's not a cantrip, she needs a short rest to reenable that spell.

[@Henrik_Holst]

you gotta reload those MP:s

[@fatalynn7]

I had to RUN to Beam me up Pod and dive into Star Trek just to stop myself from continuing to watch this show past this episode. I failed last week and watched this one also. Ugh! Can’t wait till Monday to hear you guys talk about this one!!!!

[@brentallenlive]

This is fun

[@popmonika]

The scary thing about the earth interrogators is that even when they distorted Sheridan and his story stayed the same- no one in the room for any second started to think or say "wait a second - are we sure about what we're doing here? I mean, he's keeping his story, even though he thinks where he is isn't here- isn't this morally wrong or isn't this illegal?" As Sheridan would say... "Anyone who carries out orders like that - are guilty of war crimes!"

[@Nikioko]

They don't want the truth, they want a confession.

[@briansrandomstuff76]

I don’t think the interrogators really believed that Sheridan was being influenced by the aliens, nor did they care. They just wanted him to break so that HE would believe it, and confess to it on camera.

[@inhumanmusic1411]

"Are we the baddies?" :)

[@jon-paulpowell5742]

​@@inhumanmusic1411 😂 love the reference

[@dargron7614]

Clarke has spent the last 3 years putting the right people in the right places, and organisations like Nightwatch are designed to expose "the right people" and ensure they reach the top of the food chain. The kinds of people Clarke will have in charge of interrogating and brainwashing high profile dissenters like Sheridan won't be misguided innocents who are just doing their job - they will be devout patriots, believers in Clarke's politics for whom the ends justify the worst means and truth is irrelevant if it gets in the way of victory.

[@hornorsilk2901]

So much in one episode. Rescue? Yes... but so much more!

[@keithcooper3507]

I'd take all these measurements for the length of the White Star ships with a pinch of salt. I don't think there is an official measurement. The original plan was that it was meant to be a small gunship - a bridge, an engineering section, docking bay and that's it. In Matters of Honour we could see it to scale next to an EA shuttle and Minbari flyer. But then they started to have more sets - a conference room, sleeping quarters, corridors etc and I remember Ron Thornton saying that it was making the White Stars bigger than he'd designed them to be. But you can clearly see the windows at the front of the bridge from the outside of the ship, which gives an idea of the scale. It's not large.

[@dargron7614]

The White Star is suppose to be small - the key narrative hook for the ship was that no other ship of its size could generate their own jump-point, so however it looks on screen, it should be significantly smaller than anything that can create a jump point (I don't recall if the smaller Hyperion class Earthforce ships could create their own jump points).

[@kagato3]

@@dargron7614 I'm thinking he may have mixed up the ship from Crusade with a white star.

[@CurtisAST]

Was that an amazing battle scene or what?!

[@rodentnolastname6612]

Yeah, scale for ships got a little wonky at times

[@hornorsilk2901]

White Stars are big, but that doesn't mean they are the biggest ships. Earth ships require more space, but so much less "bang for the buck" so to speak

[@HobbyView]

I think I read White Stars came in different sizes. But in general they are bigger than they look.

[@rodentnolastname6612]

Whitestars were more design than function. The models looked really cool and they didn't spend as much time on the functional layout of the interior. During production, there wasn't a good show bible on exact ship sizes and for the most part it didn't matter. As long as the audience got the idea that some ships are large, some small, and Whitestars are somewhere in-between.

[@praiha]

This is another aspect that they copied in DS9. Defiant could grow a deck or few when it needed to.

[@TairnKA]

I keep thinking there may still be traces of Kosh and/or Lorien in Sheridan and that's how he's subconsciously able to sense the unreal nature of this environment?

[@Babylon5FortheFirstTime]

thats a fair point

[@charlesmaurer6214]

I really like when you guys are so close yet so far in your guesses. Yes we all loved susan a woman who was a total power house. Next week I think would have started season 5 had JMS got the go sooner. I look forward to your breakdown.

[@edwardhuggins84]

Season 5 would of started with last week's episode

[@robertdendooven7258]

@charlesmaurer6214 @@edwardhuggins84 Keep in mind Season 4 episode order is also a type of spoiler until the end of the season. Spoilers below: What I had heard was that the last episode, "Intersections In Real Time would have been the season 4 finale. More discussion after they have watched the rest of season 4.

[@justinPearson-Smith]

Intersections in real time was originally the end of season 4 from what I remember. Which would have been dark af

[@robertdendooven7258]

@@justinPearson-Smith It would have been a great cliffhanger though...

[@justinPearson-Smith]

@@robertdendooven7258 but that gap between seasons with Sheridan being tortured would have been brutal

[@michaelmiddleton8098]

White Stars are about the size of the Defiant (which changed a lot) 😂

[@tyranusfan]

I don't think the White Stars are anywhere close to the size of the Enterprise-D. Look at the windows on the bridge (the external view), that gives you a sense of scale. That being said, the White Star is similar to the Defiant, in that sometimes the size/scale fluctuates.

[@kagato3]

He may be thinking of the ship from Crusade as it was a much larger ship but looks similar.

[@tyranusfan]

@@kagato3 Has he seen Crusade yet?

[@kagato3]

@@tyranusfan I don't think so but he said he got the size from a graphic, so likely a size comparison chart so without context he might have confused the ship in it for a white star.

[@ScreamingDoom]

5:24 - I always felt this scene resolved too... neatly. I mean, Lyta even says that the Resistance doesn't like or trust telepaths. Why would they agree just because Number One said so? They KNOW she was just telepath'd. Wouldn't it be more likely (from the rest of the Resistance members' perspectives) Number One's perception was altered to MAKE her agree? It just seemed a little too easy.

[@ianstopher9111]

How could anyone resist after she used her Bene Gesserit Voice?

[@Petrosman]

I love these episodes in the end of season 4. So much epic, so many cool things happening. Susan getting hit like that is rough, everyone loves her. It's tragic. Next episode is gonna be an interesting reaction.

[@sdfried4877]

The ships can’t be shut down by Telepaths. They’re not fully organic ships, and they have no living CPU controllers plugged in, they’re normal destroyers that have had Shadow skin grafted on to them, which provides much more resistance to enemy weaponry and tougher in a fight.

[@NZBigfoot]

Yeah outside of the Warlock class, the Omegas are pretty much Humanities top of the line vessels, and they can go toe to toe with pretty much any of the other LNW ships... their one big issue is their main gun only points forward and they arent good at turning, but they can normally take a hell of a pounding... throw on some regenerative shadow hull and multipal shadow cutting beams and they go from extremely effective to deadly... popping Whitestars left and right. Minus the need for a living CPU, given its got a full crew which is something the Shadows couldnt or didnt want to do with their ships. The other thing is, Whitestars as semi sentient ships, learn and adapt, which is why they got stronger and more effective at kill the Shadows vessels over time... the fact the ships had a hard time taking on the shadow Omegas means there was one hell of an upgrade involved. Given the Shadows philosophy its no wonder they seemed rather enamored with humanity and what we did with their tech.

[@sdfried4877]

@@NZBigfoot I’m not sure about enhanced cutting beams though. My impression was that they cut a piece of the skin off of one of the discovered ships, either on Mars or Ganymede, and found they could grow more and grafted it onto the Omegas. I don’t know that there were any other technological enhancements above that. Any other discussion related to Shadow tech could be considered spoilers.

[@chrism7395]

It always feels like there's a scene cut from the episode because they make a big thing in the tunnels about how the area is expanding and has an independent air supply.

[@shadowvessel]

Unfortunately the White Star, like the Defiant, suffered from ever changing sizes in production. I've seen a chart somewhere about it. I think it was smaller than the Defiant in season 2, then bigger than an Excelsior by season 5. 🤷‍♂️

[@lisandro73]

I hope you will enjoy the next episode as much as I did several years ago

[@BabylonLurker]

Ivanova sent Ivanova. 65! Be seeing you!

[@NathanielMiller]

Not sure where you heard the size of a White Star, but they're wrong. A White Star is ~125 meters; the Enterprise-D is almost 650. A White star is a bit smaller than the Defiant (170m)

[@martintoggweiler2343]

Do you have any bits of knowledge about the story behind the making of B5 apart from oft mentioned DS9 controversy and knowing JMS was working with a significantly lower budget, or have you and Jeff managed to maintain a blank slate otherwise, particularly about this season?

[@Nikioko]

Club 65!

[@catprog]

Artifical gravity can do more then keep people stuck to the ground.

[@therenegade79]

White Stars are frigates, closer to the Defiant in size. The Earth Destroyers are probably closer to the Enterprise D, but I think the Excalibur (White Star Dreadnought, spoilers) is the closest

[@cedric13]

Nice to have confirmation that Lyta is at least a P12, probably alot higher.

[@Nikioko]

Lyta originally was P5 before she was augmented. She could easily lock out Bester. She is way higher than P12, which was considered the highest Psi score. Apart from her, only Jason Ironheart (who transcended to a higher form of being) and Talia Winters (who was the replacement for Lyta and then was replaced back) had a Psi level higher than P12, as we know of.

[@stuartwald2395]

Just wait for her conversation next year with Garibaldi about munitions.

[@NCC-72545A]

The White Star(s) and the EAS Agamemnon are to Babylon 5 as the USS Defiant, and USS Enterprise is to Star Trek

[@zarabada6125]

I am not sure what graphic you have seen but Enterprise D is supposedly 640m long while a White Star is 120m long.

[@zarabada6125]

Note, that puts a White Star at about the same size as the Intrepid (Voyager) class

[@4everscifi]

I think it was just hard to capture scale from the beginning of the show. It always drove me nuts how big the Starfuries looked when flying next to a station that is 5 miles long, but I guess it just wouldn't show well on TV if you really made things to size. You don't really get that feel for size when looking at a Starfury next to a White Star or Earth Force Destroyer. Maybe someone out there will redo all of the space scenes to size one day just for the fun of it. Still, using CGI really let the show take on space battles in a way that Star Trek did not until the final seasons of DS9, and even then a lot of that was models.

[@OG21020]

True. It didn't happen often but sometimes there are scale definitions. Examples; S2 A Distant Star. A starfury flew beneath the EAS Cortez, following its length. S3 The Fall of Night. Starfuries attacking the Centauri cruiser. The S2 scale capture truly surprised me back then.

[@simongiles9749]

My impression was that scale could be more consistent because it was programmed into the models, particularly when it was Ron Thornton doing the effects: things seen to get a little looser when NDE take over this season.

[@ianstopher9111]

Another example of scale is in TLTS when the Narn fighters (Frazi?) fly in front of the Narn cruisers. It would have been quite difficult to make out on some 90s TV as anything more than flies.

[@StuartistStudio1964]

My absolute favorite Ivanova scene ever, followed by one of my absolute least favorite Ivanova scenes ever.

[@geoffharper8650]

I realized I need alot more fibre in my diet .

[@sirnukealot84]

Man i got so sad when ivanova got hit. Still makes me sad seeing her like that. 😢 Also man this episode is top tier!

[@Heegaherger]

The White Stars are about 325’ish meters long.

[@bizarreabomination]

475.6m to be precise.

[@Heegaherger]

@@bizarreabomination I didn’t realize they’d be that long, thanks. It has been a while since I’ve looked at one of those size comparison charts.

[@brentallenlive]

@@bizarreabominationthe enterprise D is 650. So a white Star is about 2/3 the size of the D. That’s still pretty big

[@bizarreabomination]

@@Heegaherger The Babylon Project has all the details. With the apocryphal sources the only changes are the weapons, crew, and number of small craft carried. Size remains constant.

[@bizarreabomination]

@@brentallenlive the Omega class is 1,714.3 metres.

[@jamesbell7696]

Endgame running late guys?

[@Babylon5FortheFirstTime]

Ran into some copyright stuff we needed to work through. It’s up now

[@tomnorton8499]

As far as a white stars being larger than the enterprise d I think you saw fan concept art for a battleship class of white stars.

[@sdfried4877]

Everything in Babylon 5 is larger than you think. The Omega’s are about a mile long. However, at 475 meters or 1558 feet, the Whitestar is longer than the original Enterpise’s 947 feet but much smaller than the Enterprise D’s 2103 feet. The D is aIso significantly taller and wider so in terms of total tonnage, the D is several times greater.

[@zarabada6125]

​@@sdfried4877As there is no canon source for dimensions of the White Star, you can find different dimensions on fan sites. Some are over 400m (as you say) but others give a smaller size of 120m.

[@Hakan-mz6pd]

scale has always been a problem in space shows, both star trek, star wars and B5

[@joeychicago6436]

Can anyone recommend any good scifi with solid writing? Over 25 years later we're still discussing Babylon5, SOLID WRITING on JMS's part, Remember watching 'The Book Of Boba-Fet, or Obi-wan , stories with almost no plot! The Rise of Skywalker, a completely confused plot. TNG, DS9 & Enterprise were very good, Farscape was very good, I enjoyed Serinity. I just need my fix of GOOD Sci-Fi!! I never watched the new Battlestar Galactica, is it worth while? I loved Blakes7, bad special effect, but at times SOLID writing!

[@simongiles9749]

BSG reboot is pretty good, but eventually you get the sense that they're making it up season yo season. The Expanse is also pretty good, but for me it took a while for the characters to be one anything other than archetypes. I still think of Holden as Space Jon Snow.

[@justinPearson-Smith]

Pantheon is worth a watch even if it is animated

[@neilbiggs1353]

@@simongiles9749 Agreed on both BSG and The Expanse, though I will say that the sequencing of battles in the Expanse is something else (but as you say, you don't exactly care much about the people caught up in them)

[@neilbiggs1353]

It's not exactly sci-fi, but there is a BBC show about 'recovering zombies' called In The Flesh which I thought was phenomenal. The Planet Of The Apes reboot trilogy has some of the best character writing that Hollywood has managed in a long time. Another reaction channel is currently enjoying Red Dwarf which is sci-fi sitcom. Westworld is an interesting one, there are some great ideas in there, but some people dislike the execution as being a bit tricksy.

[@joeychicago6436]

Co worker did get me to watch the Expanse, It took about a year, to get through 4 episodes, then suddenly something clicked ( I turned on subtitles) I couldn't get enough of it, I watched 2 episodes a night and finished all of it. EXCELLENT SERIES!

[@Slateking]

My favorite scene of the series is next episode, Ivonova’s best is not the who am I speach!

[@tpw84101]

White Stars are not that big. No way.

[@cedric13]

In fact they commented that the one advantage the White Star's have other then the organic tech is that they have their own jump engines, which ships their size don't normally have.

[@chrisnielsen9885]

I'm not sure what Brent was thinking of, because I can't think of anything anywhere near that big in B5 with the exception of the Explorer class. I even went and found some ship comparison charts and came up empty

[@HikaruXavier]

@@chrisnielsen9885 A Galaxy class is ~641 meters while an Omega class is ~1714 meters. The Explorer class is around 6000 meters.

[@chrisnielsen9885]

@@HikaruXavier yes I think that’s what I said

[@koalabrownie]

Always found Ivanova's speech super cringe.

[@kirishima638]

Same

[@koalabrownie]

@@calhackit9806I dunno it goes on about 3 sentences too long for a starter. Can you imagine the Earth Force commander sitting on his bridge listening to her rant? I think he would interrupt her or attack before she was finished or something-

[@JamesC1981]

there's a few out of place cringe lines in this episode along with lyta's ''i'm gonna sue somebody'' and the guy going on about the liberal media

[@AuspexAO]

@@JamesC1981 Dude, that guard 100% sounds like actual guys I know, ha ha. The line, if anything, only got more realistic with time.

[@JamesC1981]

@@AuspexAO i suppose so its just it seemed they added a bit more funky dialogue in this one episode compared to others haha

[@kirishima638]

I hope you’re keeping track of the number of times Lyta has thanklessly saved everyone on this show! She’s literally the hidden hero. This will come back to bite them…

[@TheMerovingienne]

They hate foreshadowing comments like this...

[@SaulofTarsis]

no spoilers, but i would recommend separating season 5 from the rest of the B5 narrative. The Final episode "Sleeping in Light" was the ultimate series finale, but they were extended late in the season and some main actors had already moved on. i think you could realistically view "Sleeping in Light" as the last Episode of Season 4, then watch Season 5 as a continuation or "additional tales of B5". ok, ok, ok, it's just that I'm ready for you to watch "Sleeping in Light"!

[@ManDragonA0]

I'd recommend leaving it until the end of S5, as it's so very . DoFS is enough to close off S4, and I'm very much looking forward to hearing what they think of that.

[@halcundiff6886]

Don't watch Deconstruction of Falling Star until the end of season 5. Just before Sleeping in the Light. It will confuse you watching at the end of season 4. It should have been been moved to end of season 5. Just before Sleeping.... Which is the last show.

[@hornorsilk2901]

It doesn't confuse. It is a great episode, to be watched in its proper order.

[@simongiles9749]

No, don't be silly.