The Paragon of Animals
Tonight's Babylon 5 episode, "The Paragon of Animals", is, I think, the best episode they've done in a long time. Since "Z'ha'dum", at least. If you haven't seen the episode yet, you may want to skip today's entry until you have (assuming that you care, of course!).
One major plus for the episode was that Straczynski's script crackled like few have in the last year's worth of episodes, with many funny lines that nonetheless did not undercut the very serious basic plots. (A lot of Straczynski's humor doesn't work for me, and most of what does merely induces little chuckles. Of course, I'm also a very hard man to please when it comes to humor.)
I think the fifth season is off to a strong start simply because both as a season and in its individual episodes it's far more focused. The fourth season was so muddled, being driven to work towards hard, fast-paced resolutions to the problems introduced in the first three seasons. The episodes tended to flow one into another, and the basic structure of the series broke down. Add to that a number of superfluous elements (in particular Sheridan's capture and interrogation by Clark's men) and the result was something of a mess. After Sheridan's death and resurrection, the Shadow War's conclusion was disappointing. And the Civil War was pushed to a situation where there was little to do but have a big space battle at the end.
Straczynski is at his best, it seems, when weaving his tapestry of chaos, setting up all the problems the characters have to face, and that's where we are now: The Interstellar Alliance is trying to get off the ground, and the situation with the human telepaths is coming to a head. These two wholes are being broken down into their component pieces, which works out much better in the structure that Babylon 5 has generally followed. One wonders, though, if Straczynski can bring them to a satisfying conclusion.
I can already see two things that will happen this season: First, Byron and his telepaths will eventually refuse to go along with Sheridan's requests, and second, the Interstellar Alliance will eventually fail in a mission, and suffer badly for it. All it took in tonight's episode for both was for Byron to choose not to tell Sheridan what he knew about the Drazi involvement with the raiders, or for Lyta to decide not to grant Garibaldi's request to talk to the telepaths. The telepaths would have spun off into their own world, all along and perhaps at odds with the station, and the Alliance would have been dealt a heavy blow.
It'll happen. I thought it might happen tonight. What will be salvaged out of both disasters we'll have to wait and see.
Oh, and I rather like the new relationship that Londo and G'Kar seem to be forging (clearly the germ of what grew to their friendship as witnessed in the future scenes of "War Without End"). Each has reached a sort of internal peace which is being reflected externally, especially as they realize that they are each key members of an entity that could be far greater than themselves.
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