Endgame
After staying up way too late last night, I had troubled dreams, including what I guess was a nightmare, the first I've had in a while. Somehow, in the dream, I thought I was in the movie Event Horizon (which I haven't seen); I was part of a rescue mission on a spaceship, and something was terrorizing us. The computer closed all the bulkhead doors (reminiscent of the Doctor Who episode "Planet of Evil"), resulting in a number of people getting squashed. Somehow this mutated into the ship being on a planet, and us trying to vanquish the evil presence through the use of vintage 1950s cars.
I didn't exactly wake up in a cold sweat, but I did wake up and felt ill at ease. I didn't have any trouble getting back to sleep, though. Sleeping is one thing I rarely have trouble with; it takes the fire alarm in my building 15 minutes to rouse me to wakefulness. But I don't have any trouble waking to my morning alarm, either. I'm well-conditioned, I guess.
I guess Riven will be released at the end of the month, so I'll probably spend a good chunk of November playing it. I don't often play computer games - I spent part of this last week playing the first Marathon game, though, before I concluded that it was a mindless waste of my time - so I'm not a whiz at solving computer game puzzles. It will probably take me a month or more to finish Riven, if it's any good. But that's okay; games like that should be savored.
Well, it seems I called the whole Ivanova/Marcus thing correctly (if you don't believe me, ask Ceej). For my next bold prognostication, I predict that the Vindrizi, the memory-carrying symbiotes from "Exogenesis", will appear again in the series, most likely in the fourth-season finale in a couple of weeks, "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars", although possibly during season five, or the series closer, "Sleeping In Light".
(No, unlike my days of Trekkiedom, I'm no longer nerdy enough to remember the name "Vindrizi"; I looked it up. Heck, I couldn't even remember the name of the episode!)
The final battle had its high points, although I was disappointed with the use the telepaths were put to, and General Lefcourt's last-minute save of Sheridan was telegraphed across the continent. Still, I'm a sucker for well-timed melodrama, so I give it a thumbs-up. One presumes that the messy aftermath of the whole affair will be explored over the coming episodes, as what was depicted here was far too pat to let stand.
If the series had been forced to end with season four, it would have been tremendously disappointing, as there's essentially no room for a decent denouement. It will be interesting to see what happens during season five, which can ease our characters out in a more graceful manner, and with some satisfying planned ambiguities. Of course, Straczynski has not shown great facility for ending storylines, as the Shadow War's conclusion seemed rushed and a bit trite, plus my concerns about this episode, so we'll see.
One thing Babylon 5 has not done is to explore its villains to much extent. (I don't really consider Londo a villain.) We only got a hint of who Morden really was; I'd have enjoyed an episode devoted to who he was before the Shadows got hold of him, and what he went through when he first encountered them. As it is, he remains something of a cipher. President Clark is similar; we see that he had this abstract lust for power, but the visceral beliefs and politics behind his ambitions are left blank. Most modern dictators have one or more irrational focuses through which their tyranny is expressed, but we never really see any but the most generic oppressions of the Clark regime. Spending some time exploring who Clark was and what he really did to Earth next season could be worthwhile.
Well, I guess this entry exemplifies why the show is titled Babble-on 5!
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