Brent Watches Thirdspace - Babylon 5 For the First Time | The Movie | Reaction

Join Brent as he does his first watch of the Babylon 5 movie, "Thirdspace." In this one, Ivanova plays a game of mousetrap, Franklin greenlights a murder, Sheridan goes Ironmon, and the Vorlons have left a mess. So join Brent as he dives into his first watch of this movie.
And be sure to catch our main show, Babylon 5: For the First Time, when Brent is joined by Jeff to take a deep dive into the episode, searching for those Star Trek-like messages, and seeing if they should have watched it sooner. New Episodes drop on Mondays.
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[@murkeyhollow]

1st space = Studio 2nd space = Home 3rd space = Car. Appropriate time to watch

[@terryhopkins1466]

Durring a comiccon Patricia Tallman, Lyta names this elevator scene an example of the caliber of actor Jeff was. It wasn't originally there, but they needed to fill three minutes. It was practically all monolog. Not only could you feel his honest feelings for her, it gave an explanation to why they never got together, he also nailed the timing to the second.

[@kageofkonoha]

My favorite part is when Lyta says: "One mistake. One mistake out of so many. So many others".

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

Yeah, that gave me the cold shivers-

[@zarabada6125]

The way I describe this film to Star Trek fans is, "Star Fleet meets Species 8472, done in the style of 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture.' " They even recreate the scene with Spock's jet pack going into the anomaly.

[@SuperZero42]

Yet another example of why we call him John "Nuke Em" Sheridan...

[@Klaital1]

Your right Brent, this was originally meant to be a two parter episode in season 4, but they had to cut it to be able to finish the main story when they thought they wouldn't get 5th season.

[@ogmundprime6534]

My favorite Zach Allen scene. I've used his Elevator Monologue for auditions before. Glad Jeff got that scene to show the quality of actor he really was. 👍

[@lordpuki1375]

Rumor has it that they needed another couple of minutes to fill out the runtime, so Jeff Conway improv'd this scene on the spot...

[@geoffharper8650]

Great movie , it shows that humans are not the only race to poke around in places they should not go . Sometimes things poke back . Similar to the Borg and species 8472 in Voyager .

[@ianstopher9111]

Too similar and just one year later. It was always going to lead to comparisons. I was not a great fan of Voyager, but Scorpion was excellent.

[@robertdendooven7258]

A Lovecraftian type of story. JMS has said he is a fan of Lovecraft's work.

[@ianstopher9111]

A fan of Lovecraft's work, not so much a fan of Lovecraft himself.

[@robertdendooven7258]

@@ianstopher9111 I corrected my post. I had meant his Sci-Fi work.

[@sergioaccioly5219]

There's something I don't understand about the assembly of this movie. At about 8 minutes onf this wiewing there's this scene between Lyta and Zack, that was written to fill airtime - the main story was running short. But they cut the part that explains why Delenn left Sheridan floating in space for a while. For those who don't know why, here's thereason: after capturingthe raiders, there was a particularly crappy council meeting that Sheridan bailed out of by throwing Delenn to the wolves, letting her to fend of the League's representatives' questions anddemands. She decided to take her revenge as soon as possible. Leaving him floating in spacefor a few hours was it. Delenn is ruthless.

[@littleasianyoda]

And thus is born the nickname for Sheridan… John ‘Nuke’em’ sheridan 1. Nukes on the black star 2. Nukes on zha’ha’dum 3. Nuke in this movie.

[@zarabada6125]

You forgot "Nukes at Coriana 6"

[@JamesC1981]

i think it wouldve been better to watch the movies at the right time when watching the series. it would make the final episode seem more final saying goodbye to all the characters

[@stuartwald2395]

While there are a few continuity glitches that can't be fully worked out, this takes place after Episode 8 of Season 4, with some overlap of Episode 9. It could have been a decent episode that was dragged out and padded with long "landscape" sections and ominous music. The only things that I really like are Lyta's exposition (triggered by her Vorlon programming) and most of all the elevator scene with her and Zack; that actually helps to explain how their relationship has become more problematic in Season 5.

[@nbartlett6538]

Ivanova's line about the "carbon dating" indicating the age of the artifact really drives me nuts! Carbon dating can only be used to date living (or formerly living) things on Earth, such as fossils. This is because it is based on measuring the quantity of Carbon-14 in the sample. A plant absorbs Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere, and then an animal may eat the plant. Atmospheric CO2 contains a known percentage of the Carbon 14 isotope. When the plant or animal dies, it stops taking in C-14, which then starts to radioactively decay with a known half-life. This tells us how long ago the living thing died. Carbon dating absolutely cannot tell us anything about the age of a metallic, manufactured artifact drifting through the vacuum of space.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

The problem may be that everyone knows what carbon dating is, Mention any other method and you have to explain what they are saying, which adds to the length and time is money. Considering the tight budgets Babylon 5 worked with it's not surprising they did it this way. If I'm right.

[@nbartlett6538]

​@@Dreamfox-df6bg Why do they have to explain it? Just say "the scientists reckon it's over 1m years old", and ignore *how* they know that.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

@@nbartlett6538 The could do that. But then again, some may ask how do they know that. All they can do while making a movie or show is hope they satisfied enough people so it doesn't pull them out of the immersion, but you never know what pulls someone out.

[@SSGranor]

Carbon dating is also useless once you're looking at time scales longer than a hundred thousand years. The half-life of C-14 is just too short. If they'd just said "radiometric dating" they could totally have gotten away with it.

[@lunnunis]

There was a movie where someone claimed to carbon date gold...I forgot everything else about the movie but that was comical. Was it called Timecop?

[@Calendyr]

I don't really remember that movie... but I remember I did not like it.

[@StuartistStudio1964]

H.P. Lovecraft, anyone?

[@radicalgoodspeed16]

Simmilar to 8472 from later voyager i love the concept and wanted this explored

[@kenmcauliffe3028]

At 12:26, the actor is William Sanderson. He was in Blade Runner and the shoe "Newhart."

[@lordpuki1375]

He's also a returning character from a previous season...

[@christopherlawyer4214]

"Hi! My name is Larry, this is my brother Daryl....and this is my other brother Daryl"

[@koalabrownie]

Really great shoe

[@bryanstoudenmire]

The IPX guy you probably recognized him from playing a starfleet Admiral on TNG

[@theboard6082]

In The Beginning is a wonderful movie but for some reason I always enjoyed Thirdspace the most of all the B5 films.

[@ChrisPaddlefoot]

Note... this was basically Species 8472 from ST:Voyager

[@chrism7395]

7:55 it'll be interesting to see your reaction during the rewatch to the Byron crisis and Zack's reactions to it after seeing this elevator scene. Thirdspace is JMS' love letter to the Cthulhu mythos and the Lovecraftian cosmic horror genre.

[@bryanstoudenmire]

The raider pilot was Patrick Swayzes brother Don

[@simongiles9749]

I think it was Medusa Cascade who observed that the Thirdspace ships looked like Vorlon ships with bits grafted on, and came up with the idea that perhaps the Thirdspace aliens captured Vorlon ships and adapted/corrupted them. I'd always just assumed that it was the CGI design team being a bit unimaginative, but it's a neat idea, a bit like the Xenomorph taking on characteristics of its host. I've also always thought that the Thirdspace city looks a lot like the realm of Leviathan from the Hellraiser films. And then later how Thar Amphala should look from Critical Role/Vox Machina.

[@GuardianOwl]

They've talked over the years of trying to do a reboot of Babylon 5. If you want to do something in a similar universe I have often wondered if a "What if they failed to stop the incursion from Third Space?" wouldn't be the way to do. Then the title "Babylon 5" takes on a more sinister connotation as it gets taken over and becomes the beings' base of operation, a Minas Morgul orbiting Epsilon III. Jump forward decades after the start of Third Space incursion, and any surviving cast members can take part if they so desire.

[@eyallev]

(7:23) "the carbon dating is ...." this is one of the things that annoyed me in this movie. Carbon dating works on earth, on living material, because they exchange carbon with the environment when they are alive, and what ever carbon they have in them when they die, pretty much stays there, you than compare the remaining radio active carbon in the sample (which has radioactively decayed while it was dead), to the (more or less) constant amount of radio active carbon in the atmosphere. if you put the sample in a place with a lot of radio activity, like space (or, I'd guess, even worse, in hyperspace), you can't get a good reading. they could have used "quantum dating" or "hyperspace exposure dating" to get the same message; but calling it carbon dating, means they didn't have a science guy going over the script.

[@ianstopher9111]

William Sanderson: Larry always loud one in Family Darryl. Gone now, up there!

[@sword4005]

make me wonder if mass effect was inspired in part by this, indoctrination, a overwhelming power race from beyond the galaxy with hostile intent etc

[@sststr]

I actually didn't care too much for this. Too much like generic sci-fi, not enough like B5. And paltry humans holding off aliens even more powerful than Vorlons for any amount of time whatsoever? *cough* It just didn't work for me.

[@ianstopher9111]

I think the problem is that the Vorlons also had to fight Vorlons and being more telepathic perhaps there was even more conflict making it harder to dispose of the Thirdspace aliens. However, I get your point.

[@kant12]

this is the one movie I really like

[@BigNWide]

They brought in the amazing scifi artist Wayne Barlowe to design the aliens so that they would truly look alien.

[@eyallev]

not sure where we heard it, but the vorlans are actually the youngest of the first ones.

[@sdfried4877]

The lead zombie guy is Deuce, the criminal who was using the Na’Ka’Leen feeder dressed as Kosh to intimidate his victims in Season 1. Apparently, he served his time and is still hanging around.

[@Klaital1]

I am not sure if it was necessarily the same character, could have just been the same actor playing a different character, they reused actors quite a lot for small roles in the series.

[@sdfried4877]

@@Klaital1 He’s listed as Deuce on IMDB. And he’s not the usual B5 day player. He’s a very familiar face with a pretty big resume. I’m sure there’s an interesting story for why he was there for shooting. Story wise, he added nothing except a little bit of continuity.

[@simongiles9749]

Deuce escaped at the end of Grail, he may have evaded serving time at all.

[@sdfried4877]

@@simongiles9749 Did he really? I thought he got sentenced. Mandela Effect.

[@simongiles9749]

@@sdfried4877 The last we see of him, he sneaks out a back way while the climactic firefight is going on. We do see him in court near the beginning of the episode, where there is insufficient evidence to convict him, may be what you remember.

[@Henchman314]

A Brent Watches in the wild!

[@algi1]

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[@Markus117d]

or maybe these guys are the Vorlons 😂

[@somthingbrutal]

these aliens sound a lot like Daleks ;)

[@philmarston9078]

Lyta freaking out is one of my favourite parts. The Vorlons really screwed her up

[@michaelriddick7116]

I love the Vorlon's comments about their other "mistakes"!! I wish those could have gotten fleshed out more :)

[@AlexanderLyta]

These eyes are really nice to read in the dark.

[@kirishima638]

John ‘nuke em’ Sheridan 😂

[@hornorsilk2901]

I always point out the narration shows this story takes place later than what is being narrated, which is why I don't place it in the middle of Season 4 even if the events described in it take place then. I don't know when the narration takes place. Anyone else have an idea?

[@sdfried4877]

It could be narrated any time after season 4. He describes it as the war between wars so it is apparent that the Earth Civil War is over.

[@lordpuki1375]

No, this takes place before the civil war, as Babylon 5 is still under Earth Alliance quarantine. The narration, however, is almost ALWAYS from an unspecified time afterwards...

[@zarabada6125]

I'm not sure why the narration is an issue. It is exactly the same as Londo narrating The Gathering. He refers to "The third age," which is a term coined by Sheridan in the aftermath of the Shadow War. The narration in these situations is the character looking back on the past at some point in the future. There is meant to be a disconnect in continuity between the narrator and the story they present. Some of the series openings also refer to the third age, which causes more problems if you take things too seriously (On one of his visits to B4, Sinclair had a time jump to after the Shadow War to allow him to narrate Season 1).

[@hornorsilk2901]

@@zarabada6125 Londo is also telling the Gathering from a later point, right. We learn more about that in the books

[@praiha]

I think my main problem with this movie was, that these new baddies were so much worse than Shadows etc., but they were still easily defeated. But yeah, beside that it was a decent TV movie.

[@hyzmarca2737]

They weren't really defeated. The portal that the Vorlons built got blown up. That didn't hurt the Thirdspace aliens at all, it just removed their point of access to our universe, which they don't care that much about anyway.

[@praiha]

@@hyzmarca2737 You're right, I meant their attempt to enter our universe was defeated.