Babylon 5 — S1E01: Midnight on the Firing Line

As it turns out, the news that Babylon 5 is coming to YouTube free-to-watch was not true. The initial release created quite a buzz on social media and was even overshadowing the stupid new Starfleet Acadamy show from Paramount — quite a feat for something that originally aired a third of a century ago. I really have no idea who made the decision not to continue to release this show for free or why they did something so dumb as to rug pull it again, but it is a damn shame. They actually were on their way to get a new audience for a very old show there, which doesn’t seem to happen often.

Hollywood’s exponentially increasing stupidity notwithstanding, I have decided to continue with my re-watch. Luckily, I have the show available locally. It seems you can still watch it on The Roku Channel in the US and buy it on Amazon in Europe. Or you could just procure it by alternative means, if you know what I’m saying … old-school, like we did in the 2000s. If there was ever a time to go back to the old ways, now is it, especially with Hollywood being as undeserving and entitled as they are these days.

Anyway. Let’s forget the sadness of reality for a while and dive into the first actual episode of the show in this re-watch: Season 1, Episode 1 — “Midnight on the Firing Line”

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The episode starts off very strong and is very aptly named. The whole thing kicks off with Narn ships attacking a Centauri civilian outpost, an agricultural colony, on Ragesh III. The sneak attack shocks and angers the Centauri Republic and the galaxy suddenly finds itself at the brink of war. Commander Sinclair immediately convenes the Babylon 5 Advisory Council — consisting of representatives from the Human, Minbari, Centauri, Narn and Vorlon governments — and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to sanction the Narn and to stop the attack on the hapless Centauri civilians. This is the first time we see the Council in action, after recently having witnessed its formation in “The Gathering”.

A political intrigue unfolds right away in a surprisingly complicated and nuanced plot. Londo obviously wants to see Ambassador G’Kar punished for the cowardly attack on his colony. Sinclair and Delenn want to stop the bloodshed. And the Vorlons … well, in this episode we are starting to get introduced to the idea that it is never easy to figure out what the Vorlons want.

Kosh: “They are alone. They are a dying people. We should let them pass.”
Sinclair: “Who? The Narn or the Centauri?”
Kosh: “Yes.”

As the plot develops, it now becomes clear that both Londo and Sinclair want to disregard the orders from their governments. Both governments have, for different reasons, decided that they can’t afford to intervene. The Centauri have judged Ragesh III too small, too unimportant and too remote to warrant going to war with the Narn over. A war, we learn later in the series, that they might well lose.

And the Earth Alliance is on the verge of a presidential election and does not want to become involved in such complicated interstellar matters right now. This is, once again, masterful foreshadowing from showrunner J. Michael Straczynski, as this election (which is only mentioned in a few asides in the episode) will become very important later on. In a throwaway comment in a news report in the very last scene, we learn that the incumbent President Santiago, who wins the vote, wants to concentrate on prioritising humans amid what the news report calls “growing alien influence” in the Earth Alliance. This is the first foreshadowing of maybe the second most important overarching plot point in the whole show that will later on be the focus of pretty much a whole season. That Santiago wins is hugely important. And the Earth government’s decision to not get involved in the renewed Narn-Centauri conflict is the first sign of something much larger that is to come.

To understand this current conflict and the Narn attack, some background is helpful that the show doesn’t necessarily provide at this point — it is only hinted at in this episode but will be elaborated on much more in later episodes; it isn’t a spoiler either.

About 150 years prior to the events of this episode, the Centauri conquered the Narn and occupied their homeworld. This brutal occupation only ended about thirty years before Babylon 5 went operational.¹ Because of this, there is a generational hatred between the two races analogous to something like the Gaza conflict in the real world. This is what Delenn refers to when she scolds G’Kar about his assumed “right” to reconquer territory the Narn had lost to the Centauri. Very smartly, the Minbari ambassador asks “where does it end?”, referring to the never-ending cycle of violence that situations like these tend to breed. More foreshadowing for later.

The B-plot of the episode, where Security Chief Garibaldi is chasing down pirates attacking the shipping lanes to and from Babylon 5, suddenly converges with the main story as Sinclair decides to personally lead the fighter squadron that is going to attack these raiders. Sinclair does this, because he receives orders from Earth to stay neutral in the Narn-Centauri conflict. He decides to hand the reigns over to his second-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova, and to pretend he headed out just after getting the orders, never having spoken to her about them. Thus Ivanova is to go to the Council meeting under her standing orders, which are to threaten the Narn with intervention by the Earth Alliance military, Earthforce, should they not withdraw from Ragesh III.

Meanwhile, Londo resolves to also ignore the orders from his government, which he perceives as cowardly, and commit the Centauri Republic to war with the Narn Regime, if necessary. Ambassador G’Kar gets wind of the orders from Centauri Prime, however, and humiliates Londo with this knowledge during the meeting. Even worse, he makes things personal by showing the Council a message from Londo’s cousin, in which the latter is forced to read out a request for an alliance by the Centauri on Ragesh III, claiming that they have been neglected by the Centauri Republic and now want to join the Narn instead.

Londo does not take this well. He goes to his quarters and assembles a hidden weapon (we learned during the pilot episode that weapons are not allowed on B5), intending to kill G’Kar. On the way to the Narn ambassador’s quarters, he stumbles into Talia Winters, the station’s new telepath, who reads his intentions. She informs Garibaldi, who manages to convince Londo not to do the stupid thing. Just in time for Sinclair to return from his fighter sortie with a prisoner in tow: As it turns out, the Narn had supplied weapons to the raiders and their command-and-control ship had a Narn technician on board. Who just so happens to possess secret communications between the Narn homeworld and the forces at Ragesh III that show that the Centauri request for aid to the Narn was indeed fake, as Londo had suspected.

The way in which the B-plot suddenly resolves to a Narn prisoner with these handy top-secret communications on hand, is the weakest part of the episode. It’s obviously a plot contrivance. But considering the amazingly smart and witty writing in the rest of the episode, I am more than willing to overlook this obvious MacGuffin. What makes it especially worth it is the clever way in which JMS introduces the Narn-Centauri conflict to us. Much like in the pilot, G’Kar comes across as a deranged madman, while Londo seems to be an eccentric, but lovable fogey. For all his bravado, he seems almost helpless, trapped between past glories and a present that has moved on from the grand designs of empire the Centauri once held — and for which he longs. This might me true here, but let me tell you, Londo is gonna change in the course of this show. He’s gonna change big time. And we will also gain an appreciation of why the Narn act the way they do. We might even sympathise at some point. Not to mention that G’Kar is also going to change a lot. So, your assumptions on who the bad guys are here, based on what we’ve seen so far, are not necessarily going to hold up during the rest of the show …

“Commander, please … On the issue of galactic peace, I am long past innocence and fast approaching apathy. It’s all a game. A paper fantasy of names and borders.” — Londo Mollari

What amazes me every time when I watch this episode is Londo telling Sinclair about the dream the Centauri have. That he knows how he will die: him and G’Kar squeezing the life from each other in about 20 years. This is amazing because it is true. It will happen in the show. And when it does, it will blow your mind that JMS dropped this little foreshadowing² gem into the very first episode. Don’t worry. Knowing this doesn’t really spoil anything. Knowing this is like asking a Vorlon for advice: Nothing is as it seems in this show.

Speaking of Londo: What most stands out in this episode to me, as far as acting is concerned, is the interplay between Peter Jurasik’s Londo and the new addition of Stephen Furst’s Vir Cotto. I know from watching Babylon 5 countless times over how great of a team these two are throughout the show. But watching this again made me suddenly aware that this started in the first second they are on screen together. When Londo says “meet my diplomatic staff, freshly arrived from homeworld … this is it” it’s immediately a winner. Jurasik and Furst hit the ground running here and never stop throughout the run of the show. They are consistently great. Sometimes they provide much needed comic relief, sometimes they take very dark turns together, sometimes they just add colour to the panoply of B5 … but they never, ever disappoint. An acting duo for the ages!

Another great introduction is Claudia Christian as Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova. Watching this episode for the first time, you might think she’s coming on a bit strong, but oh no!, that’s Ivanova alright. Get ready for more of that.

Tamlyn Tomita was famously not comfortable with her role as Lt. Cmdr. Takashima in “The Gathering” and the network even made her re-record all of her lines (later restored to the original audio by JMS in the subsequent special edition release of the pilot) because they thought she was acting too harsh. When that was, obviously, exactly what Straczynski wanted. And he’s getting it with Claudia Christian. If any aspiring Hollywood writer is reading this: Go watch Babylon 5 and pay attention to Ivanova! That is how you write a strong female character.

What I really like about her portrayal in the show, too: she’s in uniform like everyone else. No weird Dianna Troy special outfits, no Seven-of-Nine catsuit … just a normal uniform like the men wear. Does it make her less hot? Hell no! Does it make her more kickass? You bet.

And again, in the very first episode, we get so much background exposition about her. She isn’t just bitchy because she’s Russian and a stickler for discipline or because she thinks Talia is too hot with her luxurious blond mane. We learn that she’s pissed off because she hates the Psi Corps. Because her mother was forced to take horrible depressants to supress her psychic abilities which led to her killing herself. And, believe you me, there’s a whole ’nother level to this that we have no idea about yet. Her actual reason is even darker. Again, more foreshadowing here by puppet master JMS.

Despite the somewhat weak subplot and its too-obvious introduction of the MacGuffin that solves the central problem of the episode, the first outing for the regular Babylon 5 cast does not disappoint. We get a really good understanding of the raison d’être of B5, a well-paced introduction to the Narn-Centauri conflict with some very smart dialogue about wars and the things that lead up to them, and some very strong early character set pieces. There’s some trademark ’90s sci-fi comic relief to take our mind off the heavy stuff and even a small space battle. I also absolutely love how the episode ends: Sinclair has just turned the lights out on his way to bed when Ivanova chimes in on the intercom: “Commander … there’s a problem.” This is very much setting the tone for the rest of the show right there. I don’t know about you, but I’m hooked again!

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Interesting background from JMS on this episode:

“The first one-hour episode of the series, “Midnight on the Firing Line,” does a fair amount of re-introduction, for those who’ve seen the pilot and need to be up to speed, and some introducing for those who haven’t. It is, however, largely an action-oriented story, into which we weave the characterization. It manages to convey some of the same info as the pilot, but in a much more dramatic fashion.”

“No, the show isn’t a year and a half late. As it is, it’s less than one year since the pilot aired. It was our initial hope, and my initial belief, that we’d go straight into the series as soon as we finished the pilot. But the studio, in its infinite wisdom, decided that since they HAD a pilot, it kinda behooved them to air it and get the ratings before committing to a series. So we then waited until February for the airing, got the go-ahead to production around April/May, began shooting in July, got a whole bunch of episodes in the can, and now we’re hitting the air. That is the sum and substance of it […] Much to our consternation at first, but in the long run it was a blessing in disguise, because that interim period allowed us to really do a lot to make the show better.”

“Ah, but you’re assuming that the Londo-strangling-scene is as it seems to be; maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. You don’t know the context yet.”

“Down the road, we will be seeing more of Londo, and his people, and realize that they aren’t as human looking as they first appear.”

“At the point in which we join the tale of the last of the Babylon stations, everything is in a state of flux…one government is on the rise, another is declining, Earth is taking some new and disturbing directions…so yes, they all feel there is a change coming. It’s a little thing, but we keep it alive to keep a sense of something moving on a web, and each movement makes the whole thing shake just a little.”

“I never said it was an isolationist president. The reporter doing the commentary at the election talked about preserving earth culture in the face of growing alien influences, which isn’t quite the same thing as cutting off trade agreements.”

“I like it when people lie in television, and we find out about it over time. The “lost colony” routine was one such. At one point, Garibaldi confronts Londo with this as reason for why he doesn’t trust the Centauri. Londo shrugs it off as a “clerical error.” There will be a few points in the series when we’ll get information, and we’ll buy into it…and discover after a while that that character bald-facedly lied to the other character (and, by proxy, to us). And naturally there will be consequences to this….”

“My thought, at the time, was that if we play the reality of this for a moment, probably all of the ambassadors have some kind of weapon, smuggled in via diplomatic pouches. Garibaldi and Sinclair know they’re there…question is, is it worth starting a diplomatic incident over, as long as they’re not being used? Garibaldi is saying, in essence, “Okay, you know it’s there, and I know it’s there, but now you’ve made a point about it. Lose it or hide it, or I’m going to have to charge you, and we’re BOTH going to be up to our ears in it.” If Garibaldi confiscated it, there’d be a whole diplomatic hassle… and Londo would just have another one sent to him via diplomatic pouch.”

“There’s another level there, the “little clues and hints” you mention, which will just skate past most casual viewers and not in any way interfere with their viewing of the episode…but if you’re paying attention, and you catch them, it adds a new level. The more you see, the more you begin to perceive that second level. It’s a cumulative effect that doesn’t diminish the single episodes as stand-alones. In any event, what I’m striving for is the idea that you can watch the episodes for the character stories, OR the story arc, OR the individual stories, OR all three at the same time, all in the same exact episodes. You can get out as much as you’re willing to find. It’s a very weird kind of writing…but at least on this end, it’s kinda fun, actually.”

“Did we save anything for the rest of the season? Lemme put it to you this way…you ain’t seen nothin yet. “Midnight” makes just about everything done before for TV look lame…but there’s stuff coming down the pike that’ll make “Midnight” look pale by comparison. With each show we get better, we learn more, and we can do more.”

“There are days I think – between Jerry [Doyle], Harlan [Ellison], me and some others involved on the show – we ought to name this Loose Cannon Productions….”

“Behind-the-scenes humor: because it had been so long since the pilot, it took a few of our actors a bit of time to get back into their characters, to find the characters’ “fingerprints” for lack of a better term. This is quite understandable given the long waiting period. When he needed to find his character for a scene, Peter Jurasik mentioned that he would just stand up straight and yell, “MISter GariBALdi!” and he’d be right back in character.”