“Into the Fire”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Kevin James Dobson
Season 4, Episode 6
Production episode 406
Original air date: February 3, 1997
It was the dawn of the third age… Ivanova is off trying to fetch First Ones, with Lorien’s help. Lorien preaches patience, a quality Ivanova is not overburdened with, but it pays off, as the First Ones that Lorien was expecting arrive.
Sheridan leads a fleet of White Stars to attack and destroy a Vorlon outpost, which will give their gigunda fleet the opening they need to gather at Coriana VI. Cole and Alexander discuss their mission, wondering why Centauri Prime wasn’t chosen as the rendezvous point, as that planet is also in danger at roughly the same time. Cole points out that Coriana has a larger population and is less technologically advanced. The Centauri, at least, can prepare some kind of defense.
Cut to Centauri Prime, where Prime Minister Mollari is trying to prepare some kind of defense. He is stymied by the period of mourning for Cartagia, but they only have twelve hours before the entire planet will need to be mourned after the Vorlons destroy it. Mollari also instructs that Morden be found.
On the White Star flagship, Delenn reports to Sheridan that Ivanova and Lorien have returned to B5 with a mess of First Ones. Sheridan tells her to haul ass to join the fleet.
On B5, Ivanova prepares to depart and has a conversation with Lorien on the subject of immortality, which prompts a lengthy infodump from Lorien about how his species were born immortal, but with a very low birth rate. Younger races had shorter lifespans.
On Centauri Prime, Durano, the minister of intelligence, meets with Mollari. He carried out an investigation into the death of Adira on Cartagia’s order, and when he finished the investigation, was told by the emperor to never reveal the results to Mollari as long as he was alive. With Cartagia dead, Durano is now free to inform Mollari that it was not Refa who ordered Adira’s death, but rather Morden. Mollari is livid and kicks Durano out of his quarters, which he then trashes in anguish.
Ivanova is hauling ass to Coriana, impatiently barking orders in broken Minbari before Lorien gets her to calm down.
Morden is brought to Mollari in the throne room. He’s fully healed from his injuries sustained on Z’ha’dum. Mollari wishes this conversation to be private, so he tells Morden not to move, while his guards move away. Then two other guards shoot and kill the Shadows that, um, shadow Morden all the time.
Mollari then orders Morden to have the Shadow vessels removed from Selini. Morden refuses, not believing that the Vorlons would destroy a world as populous as Centauri Prime (a belief not at all supported by reality). Morden also boasts that the Shadow ships can take on anything the Centauri can throw at them. Mollari counters that the ships are very impressive—in the air or in space. But right now they’re on the ground. Morden dismisses that, also. “What’re you gonna do, Mollari—blow up the island?”
After a sufficiently dramatic pause, Mollari says, “Actually, now that you mention it…” and pulls out a detonator.
Morden screams as Mollari blows up the island. Most of the Centauri were evacuated in the night. A few remained behind to keep up appearances, knowing it was a suicide mission. Morden is taken away, screaming bloody murder.
Everyone arrives at Coriana at about the same time: Shadows, Vorlons, and the Army of Light fleet.
At first, the Vorlons and Shadows get into it, ignoring the Army of Light. So Sheridan orders a bunch of nukes set off on asteroids to get their attention, at which point the battle becomes a big mess. Sheridan tries to get the Vorlons to talk via comms and again via telepathy through Alexander.
On Centauri Prime, Vir comes to the throne room to find a happy Mollari, as all Shadow influence has been removed. He also tells Vir to go into the garden, where there is a present for him.
Vir goes out to the garden to see Morden’s severed head on a pike. After a flashback to remind viewers of what Vir’s answer was to Morden’s perpetual question, “What do you want?” Vir then gives a jaunty wave to the disembodied head.
At Coriana, Sheridan is growing more frustrated, as the Vorlon planet-killer is approaching the sixth planet and the Vorlons are not talking. So Sheridan plays his trump card: calling in the First Ones, who make short work of the planet killer.
On Centauri Prime, Mollari proudly says that he’s informed the Vorlons of all he’s done—but then the planet-killer shows up. It’s left to Vir to point out that there is one bit of Shadow influence still on the world: Mollari himself.
The Vorlons call all their ships to Coriana in order to take on the First Ones. This turns out to be Centauri Prime’s salvation, as the planet killer buggers off before it has a chance to destroy the world—and before Mollari can convince Vir to kill him.
Just as Lorien comes on board Sheridan’s ship, the Vorlons and Shadows both use Alexander as a conduit and imprison Sheridan and Delenn in energy fields. A Vorlon avatar confronts Sheridan in an astral plane, while the Shadows confront Delenn via images of people she knows (Franklin, Lennier, Ivanova, Delenn herself). Our heroes ask why they haven’t struck at each other directly, and postulate that it’s because they want to show the opposing species that they were right. Can’t gloat if you’ve wiped out the person you’re arguing with…
Lorien is protecting Sheridan and Delenn and also broadcasting the stuff on the astral plane to everyone in the Army of Light. When the Vorlons and Shadows realize this, they free Sheridan and Delenn and send the Death Cloud at their White Star. However, other ships intercept the Death Cloud. The fleet is united with them and against both the Vorlons and the Shadows. Sheridan throws their usual questions of “Who are you?” and “What do you want?” back at them, and when they can’t answer Delenn says that they’ve become so consumed by their conflict they’ve lost their way. The younger races are tired of being manipulated by them. It’s time for them to go. Lorien speaks for the First Ones and says that it’s time for them all to move on beyond the rim and let the younger races fend for themselves. The Vorlons and Shadows agree, given the reassurance that all the remaining First Ones will go with them.
On Centauri Prime, Mollari is reluctant to celebrate, simply because every time he’s been happy, the universe has conspired to defecate in his trousers. Vir convinces him that the gods can’t begrudge Londo Mollari at least one night of celebration. And so Mollari celebrates.
The White Stars return to B5. Sheridan and Delenn ruminate on how this is the third age of humanity. The first age was when they were primitive and limited to a single planet. The second was when they explored the galaxy under the watchful eyes of the First Ones. Now they’re on their own…
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan and Delenn shout at the Vorlons and Shadows, and it makes them go away. Just in general, Sheridan is incredibly arrogant and high-handed in this episode, which is probably necessary to get the job done, but it ain’t a great look.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova is extremely skeptical of Lorien’s claims to be immortal and as old as he is, which prompts Lorien to speak in exposition for several minutes.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. In the latest edition of “Delenn thinks English is stupid,” she gives Sheridan a hard time regarding the phrase “haul ass.”
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari brings a very emotionally satisfying and cathartic end to his relationship with Morden.
The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Alexander is the key to getting the Vorlons and the Shadows to talk to them. She also has a great delivery of a line right after Sheridan orders some asteroids blown. “Captain? They’re pissed.”
The Shadowy Vorlons. The Shadows and Vorlons both go from incredibly powerful and manipulative forces to children being rebuked in the course of an episode. Sure.
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Cole says there was only room for two people on the shuttle that took Lorien from Ivanova’s ship to Sheridan’s, so he came back, which makes absolutely no sense, so it’s obvious that Cole just wanted to be near Ivanova.
Looking ahead. Morden’s final words in the throne room are threatening Centauri Prime in general and Mollari in particular with retribution from the Shadows’ allies; we’ve gotten hints of that in the flash-forward in the “War Without End” two-parter, and we’ll see more starting in the very next episode, “Epiphanies,” and going all the way to “The Fall of Centauri Prime” in season five.
Welcome aboard. Several recurring regulars in this one. Ed Wasser plays Morden and also voices the Shadow representative; he’ll be back as Morden in “Day of the Dead.” Wayne Alexander makes his penultimate appearance as Lorien, returning to the role in the series finale “Sleeping in Light”; he’ll be back sooner as a Drazi in “Intersections in Real Time.” Damian London returns from “Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?” as the Centauri Minister; he’ll be back next time in “Epiphanies.” And Ardwight Chamberlain makes his final appearance on the series as the voice of the Vorlon representative; he’ll be back in the movie In the Beginning as Kosh.
In addition, Julian Barnes is simply superb as Minister Durano.
Trivial matters. Adira was killed by Morden’s machinations, with Mollari believing it was Refa, in “Interludes and Examinations.” Morden was caught in the backwash of an explosion in “Z’ha’dum,” but survived, as established in “The Hour of the Wolf,” albeit badly injured. Vir expressed his wish for Morden’s head to be put on a pike in “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.”
After Selini is blown up, Morden is seen clutching the necklace he wears. The significance of that necklace is explained in the novel The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos which, among other things, details the journey of the Icarus, the crew of which included Morden and Anna Sheridan.
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“You’re insane.”
“On any other day, Mr. Morden, you would be wrong. Today? Today is a very different day. One last time, remove your ships.”
“No. You don’t frighten me, Mollari. If you try to attack our forces, you’ll lose.”
“Yes, your ships are very impressive in the air or in space—but at this moment, they are on the ground.”
“Fine, they’re on the ground. But they can sense an approaching ship miles away. So what’re you gonna do, Mollari, huh? Blow up the island?”
—The conversation Morden and Mollari have right before Mollari blows up the island.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Consider it a gift.” I have generally avoided comparisons between this show and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as the absolute last thing I want to do is revive the dumbshit “war” that segments of fandom (and the creator of B5) kept trying to manufacture between B5 and DS9 in the late 1990s. I similarly avoided it in my DS9 Rewatch from a decade ago.
The exception was for DS9’s “Sacrifice of Angels,” which I mentioned in relation to this very episode, and I mention it again here for the purposes of symmetry, because both “Into the Fire” and “Sacrifice of Angels” have similar climaxes that signal the end of a major conflict: lead character(s) shouts self-righteously at powerful alien beings for several minutes, which convinces them to take actions that will put an end to the conflict in question. In DS9’s case, it was Sisko yelling at the Prophets to take action against the Jem’Hadar fleet coming through the wormhole. In B5’s it’s Sheridan and Delenn telling the Shadows and Vorlons off, saying we don’t need your help and go away, please.
And I don’t buy it. Not for a nanosecond.
Look, these are incredibly powerful aliens who have manipulated events and civilizations, and who also have the technological means to wreak tremendous havoc. While I like the revelation that they aren’t going all-out against each other because they ultimately each want to prove to the other they they’re right, so there, nyah, nyah, the fact that they accept Sheridan and Delenn’s self-righteous rebuke with anything other than destroying them with the flick of a metaphorical finger beggars belief. In particular, the contrite, humble, I’m-sorry-Mom-and-Dad-I’ll-be-good-from-now-on tones that Ardwight Chamberlain and Ed Wasser give the Vorlon and Shadow representatives at the very end is so wildly out of character from how both species have been portrayed up until now.
Now to be fair, I’m not sure there was a better way to do this. My first instinct would be to have the First Ones play a much larger role, have them come in and say, “What is wrong with you twerps?” Another thought is to have the Vorlons and Shadows finally go at each other and wipe each other out, leaving our heroes to pick up the pieces. Or maybe after Sheridan and Delenn basically reject both sides, we get a smile from both and they say, “Okay, now you get it,” and they leave on their own feeling accomplished instead of slinking away with the other First Ones.
Are these better? Well, as with everything it depends on the execution. Maybe with a different execution, this solution would have worked for me. And this particular execution might work just fine for others, but man, it just hit me the wrong way. It feels anticlimactic and weak.
Luckily, the episode itself is greatly redeemed by every single scene on Centauri Prime, which collectively form an absolute masterpiece.
Seriously, I can watch the Centauri Prime scenes in this episode over and over and over again, as they’re some of the absolute best work in the series, paying off three years of storylines involving the dance between the Centauri and the Shadows in general and between Mollari (and Vir) and Morden in particular.
There’s the payoff to Vir’s delightful answer to Morden’s question way back in season two. There’s the horror on Mollari’s face when he realizes that his presence on Centauri Prime means it remains a target, that horror matched by Vir when told he must kill Mollari. Vir is only just beginning the process of getting over killing Cartagia, to pile this on top of that is a burden he is absolutely not prepared for. Mollari being so very reluctant to celebrate, given how his life has gone.
And then there are the two best scenes, arguably two of the best scenes in the entire franchise. In every prior scene with Mollari and Morden going back to the latter’s first appearance in “Signs and Portents,” Morden is playing the ambassador like a two-dollar banjo. Morden always has the upper hand, always is in charge of everything that’s happening. When the prime minister brings the Shadows’ proxy to him in “Into the Fire,” however, for the first time, the positions are reversed. Peter Jurasik cranks up Mollari’s tropism for theatricality up to eleven, repeatedly and bombastically showing that he has the upper hand no matter how many times Morden tries to counter it. Then the crowning moment of the scene, which is also the simplest: removing a small remote from his pocket and pushing the button, with Morden having very generously provided a rhetorical opening. After that, Morden is carried off, the character showing true emotion for the first time ever, and Mollari very quietly promises far worse to be done to him.
As absolutely fabulous a scene as that is, it’s my second-favorite in the episode. The earlier scene when Minister Durano very calmly and professionally lays out the details of the investigation into Adira’s murder is a tour de force. Julian Barnes plays this magnificently, his cool, detail-oriented presentation in direct contrast to Mollari’s typical histrionics. I’m really sorry that this was Barnes’ only appearance as Durano, as he was superbly written and spectacularly performed. He exposes Mollari’s weakness without at any point diminishing or threatening the prime minister, instead simply presenting the evidence. Jurasik follows this with a beautifully anguished trashing of his quarters as he realized what a spectacular idiot he’s been—and also setting up his takedown of Morden shortly thereafter.
I used to do out-of-ten rankings of episodes in rewatches, which I hated, and this episode is a perfect example of why. The Centauri parts are among the show’s best, while the main plot disappoints on almost every level. It’s really hard to put a number on that, and I’m glad I don’t have to…
Next week: “Epiphanies”
Yeah, the Vir wave was one of my favorite bits in the entire series.
The impending series cancellation really showed at the end of this episode. Not the way it ended, but just the tremendously rushed feeling. As if it really needed a few more episodes of setup for the end of the Shadow/Vorlon War.
The events on Centauri Prime could’ve filled an entire episode.
I think this review sums up my own feelings on the episode fairly well.
In theory, I like the idea for how the situation with the Vorlons and Shadows is handled. I think it’s more interesting than trying to convince us that they could win through some clever military strategy. But I think the execution could have been handled far better. In particular, the Vorlons and Shadows both cave in so damn fast that it feels like something more substantial was left on the cutting room floor. I honestly have no problem with the lead-up to their decision to leave; I just think that decision and the actual exodus happens so fast that it leaves a sense of dissatisfaction. I’m always left wanting to see them argue the point more and make Sheridan and Delenn really work for it. I always wonder if this moment is a casualty of having to condense the fourth season by a few episodes.
By contrast, I thoroughly enjoy the Centauri plot thread. It makes the entire episode for me.
Such a feeling of “Wait. What? It’s over?” when this first aired. I was aware that things were being rushed in the face of cancellation, but there were still a lot of episodes to go. Now, of course, we know how much more story there is to come, but this sure felt like the climax at the time.
Like Critical myth says, it feels like there’s stuff that didn’t make it onto the screen to justify the Vorlons and the Shadows giving in so easily. The presence of the other First Ones probably plays a part; their equals are not just looking on, but have taken part on the side of the younger races against both of them. Plus Lorien is there. Dad’s not angry, but he’s very disappointed.
Dad’s been absent for 10’s of thousands of years, and he’s trying to make up for lost time with his “children”.
It did feel like a climax, though JMS had been telling us for years that the end of the Sahdow/Vorlon conflict was NOT the end of the Babylon 5 story.
But to have three years of buildup ended in a part of a single episode, well…
I always hated the Shadow/Vorlon war ending because it is so out of character for both species. “You’ll go with us?” “We won’t be alone?” whining was never hinted at as motivations, and the tone was, as you say, childish in the extreme.
I think it’s entirely in character for both species.
Their whole thing for millennia has been staying up on their high horse about how they know how to guide the younger races, to the point where what sounded like (at the least) a polite rivalry has degenerated into them destroying each others’ client species.
So what happens when the pillar of your existence is knocked out from under you? Your peers have rejected you. The younger races you’ve been trying to guide have scolded you – and been right, damnit! What’s left? What do you do when the core purpose of your life is no longer valid – heck, has been utterly destroyed by the very people you were smugly convinced you were helping? If that is brought home to them in a way they can’t reject, I can entirely see them feeling lost and weak, humbled and wanting comfort.
The problem is the execution. To make it work, you have to make the viewers believe that the Vorlons and the Shadows have accepted the critique – have lost that sense of purpose. And that’s where the episode failed.
The pieces are all there, I could see where JMS was going with this, so I was willing to give the resolution a pass. But it wasn’t handled well enough to be emotionally satisfying. This is where I think the truncated season hurt; it would have worked better if the ShadowVors had been worn down by multiple rejections, to the point where they couldn’t hold on to their self-righteousness and had to accept that they were no longer wanted.
Edit: Now that I think about it, this was foreshadowed in a way with Delenn – or at least there are echoes of her situation. Delenn started Season 2 confident and righteous about her doing the right thing with her transformation. And that confidence was knocked out from under her throughout the season, as party after party attacks her for it, until she breaks down completely in “And Now For a Word.” So we’ve seen this happen within the show itself. The problem is we don’t see a thorough enough development for the ShadowVors.
Hmm I will admit I haven’t rewatched this in years but my memory is that Sheridan and Delenn both go into the problems with both philosophies and that the avatars as presented represent those philosophies with the Vorlon avatar being basically frozen. I always interpreted them leaving as a mix of the “now you get it” that you mention and the involvement of the first ones.
I mean the feeling I got always from this was that though Lorien was always very careful to state he was not a God that both the Vorlons and Shadows treated him that way and the other first ones as almost Gods. The mixture of having the younger races basically showing them both up by winning the philosophical argument and the involvement of the first ones led to them all leaving. I will admit, however, I may have been overtaken by the power of the reveal – as this was when the true symbolism of the show worked for me.
In interviews, I think, interviewers had referred to the Vorlons as Angels and the Shadows as Devils and Strazysinski stated that the symbolism when deeper than that. Especially given that this came out in the 1990s the philosophies here are the important points to what that symbolism is. The shadows are a stand in for rampant capitalism obsessed with innovation and change while the Vorlons represent pure unchanging communism. At any time during the cold war Russia or the US could have destroyed each other. The army of light represents what it must have felt like to be a second or third world country caught up in the cold war. I loved this when I saw this for the first time and still do. An amazing and to me especially at the time new perspective that almost reaches symbolism levels in sci-fi literature. Certainly, more than in any other TV show at the time.
I also loved the Lorein quote you left out discussing about death being a gift the universe gave us as it allows us to think some things are eternal. Used to scoff at myself having that problem “I am studying to be a chemist I know all things end” but then I read a star trek novel that proved me wrong. Kirk returns to the Guardian of Forever and asks basically what was it all for? Things happen after that, that I don’t remember except Kirk being given a vision into the far future when the entire galaxy is in one federation and a ship “called Enterprise in the language of the time” ends up going into parallel universes after being invited to do so. To my shame I had a rather visceral reaction to “Enterprise in the language of the time”. (If anyone knows what book that was let me know – want to read more of that author and I can’t find it again),
The book you’re looking for is “Federation” by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The column and especially the comments here have finally clarified for me why the sudden end of the war feels so muddled to me from a story sense. Up to now, the story has been about the younger races growing up and making a break with their (abusive) parents.
If the younger races had managed to push the First Ones out through some combination of standing up for themselves and making their ‘parents’ feel ashamed of their actions, well and good, and that’s what was supposed to have happened here but didn’t quite. Or if the younger races came to realize that the First Ones, for all their power, were still in some ways small, scared children who needed to grow up and move on, that could have made for an empathetic twist. Or if the younger races convinced Lorien that he needed to step up and take responsibility for his children, that could have been interesting too, if not really in line with the themes of the show.
Instead we whipsaw from First Ones as abusive parents being castigated by their kids, to First Ones as frightened children who are afraid they’ll be lonely if they move out. They show no contrition for their actions, and they wouldn’t have made the flip had the younger races not brought along kindly Grandpa Lorien to tell off his kids. Lorien’s power, actions, and standing with the First Ones turn what should have been a demonstration of the younger races’ coming of age into a story of Lorien manipulating everyone into getting his old buddies to move out with him.
The Centauri portion of the story is absolutely amazing. With the garden scene, I’m pretty sure that Vir is the only one on the show who ever got what he wanted.
I dunno, Zack might have eventually gotten a jacket that fit.
Finally, someone mentions Zack’s jacket. Why does everyone else get sleek, well fitted uniforms with cool robes, and Zack looks like he’s got a coat hanger still in his and he’s hung up in a closet? It’s annoys me every time he’s onscreen, and I love Zack so it’s doubly annoying.
Re: Zack’s uniform not fitting right, it was not only a plot point in “Voices of Authority” but it was a complaint that the late Jeff Conaway made, frequently. He said he used to do lots of situps but was annoyed that he had this uniform jacket that bunched in the middle and he couldn’t show off his flat stomach. And there’s another scene in a few episodes where Zack is again complaining but this time as he’s being fitted for one of the new Minbari-style command uniforms… and this time he gets poked with a needle for his trouble.
It’s because Zack isn’t a senior officer, so he’s wearing the uniform of lower-ranked personnel. This will change eventually.
Also, it was a throw-away plot point in “Voices of Authority”.
So, now that the
EldarFirst Ones havereturned to the Undying Landsventured beyond the rim, all that’s left is the Scouring ofthe ShireEarth Alliance?Seriously, I feel like I just speed-watched ten episodes in 44 minutes. Ivanova’s quest to round up more First Ones? Already taken care of. The war between the Vorlons and the Shadows? Finished after a single conversation (I was actually enjoying that scene until I realized it was the end of the arc). Driving the Shadows off Centauri? Sorted between scenes. I agree that those scenes were terrific, but it really felt like there could have been a lot more there. Even dealing with Morden felt awkwardly rushed, with Londo saying, “Oh, Mr. Morden, I have not even started with you yet,” only to reveal in the next scene on Centauri that he’s just had him executed. I’ve rarely finished an episode of a television show feeling both breathless and disappointed at the same time.
Ah and you did not call out the worst part. The final conversation between Sheridan and Delenn was I think one of the lowest level reached in the whole series. “Lorien was right, it’s a great responsibility. This is ours now” – point at B5. Who the hell was responsible for it until now? the Vorlons? the whole dialogue was fake and i didn’t believe for a second that two people would ever talk like that.
And yeah, agree about the absurdity of shouting at the Vorlons and the Shadows would work.
An alternative ending could have also been that the Vorlons and Shadows just wipe out the puny fleet of Sheridan and destroy Centauri Prime. Would have been at least realistic…
I think the misstep in the main story is the redshirting of the rest of the fleet. Its one thing to say the other races are rejecting their elders. Its another to have a CGI ship move in front of a slow CGI missile and just have your humans and space elves talk about it.
It needed a proper character to make that sacrifice and act the hell out of it. It worked for me when I first saw it, and it still does as a concept, but I can see the seams where Stracynski ran out of time and ammo.
I’m not sure redshirting is the right word for it – I did feel the sacrifice when ships from the fleet intervened to save Sheridan and Delenn. But I think you’re absolutely right about the seams showing.
>>Look, these are incredibly powerful aliens who have manipulated events and civilizations, and who also have the technological means to wreak tremendous havoc. While I like the revelation that they aren’t going all-out against each other because they ultimately each want to prove to the other they they’re right, so there, nyah, nyah, the fact that they accept Sheridan and Delenn’s self-righteous rebuke with anything other than destroying them with the flick of a metaphorical finger beggars belief.<<
How much to you think this is because JMS had to cram the end of the Shadow War into half a season, so the back half could be the retaking of Earth from Clark et. all? My circle of friends at the time thought that there was probably more that the First Ones & Lorien were there to do, but with the plot truncated because of the “Well, now I have to make two seasons fit into one” situation is what lead to this ending.
I do wonder how it would have gone if JMS had decided to not “complete the story” at word of the cancellation, and leave us with that possible cliffhanger of only four out of five seasons. It might have also led to a stronger fifth season that we did get where it feels like it is, a bunch of sub-plots that had to be pumped up to be the main p
By all accounts from JMS, the difference would have been a handful of episodes. It was never the plan to extend the Shadow War much further than it did. I’ve seen some comments from JMS that indicate that this could have been handled as a two-parter, but various factors led him to cram it into a single episode. In retrospect, I think many of us agree that the conclusion would have been better served with a little more breathing room.
Acknowledging JMS’s well-discussed breakneck pacing of the episode and the arc, I still find Sheridan’s argument satisfying, if cursory.
On the other hand, the Vorlon & Shadow arc’s resolution seems as arbitrary and abrupt as “The Squire of Gothos,” but compounded by two whiny Trelanes at the end instead of just one.
I don’t think Sheridan was arrogant and high-handed, I think he was a youth standing up to his parents and asserting that he and his siblings had earned the right to be treated as adults. To arrogate something is to claim it without justification, to assert a status or right to which one is not entitled. Standing up to convince someone of a status you have earned, therefore, is not arrogance, merely an assertion of a right. Sometimes young people have to speak forcefully to their parents to get them to see they aren’t children anymore, that they’ve earned the right to be given greater freedom and responsibility.
I think the Vorlons and Shadows were forced to realize that the younger races had earned that right by achieving something that came from neither of the manipulators, something they built themselves that upended the whole game board. The Shadows’ strategy of pitting the races against each other would no longer work if they were united, and the Vorlons’ “just do what we tell you” strategy wouldn’t work if they were openly defiant and ready to fight back. Besides, if an experiment depends on the subjects not knowing the goal of the experiment, it becomes impossible to sustain it once they’re in the know. Seeing that the First Ones and Lorien were on the younger races’ side would’ve been the final straw that made them realize they’d failed.
Did it seem too rushed and cursory? Kind of, yeah. But I can buy that such advanced species can think rapidly and wouldn’t need long to come to this conclusion.
What I don’t buy is the conceit that, after being driven out by the dozen or so civilizations united behind Sheridan, the only option was to leave the galaxy forever. I mean, it’s a huge galaxy, with hundreds of billions of stars. These civilizations are the tiniest fraction of the whole. There should still be plenty of species in the galaxy that know nothing about any of this, so the V&S could’ve just shifted location and started over.
Anyway, I’m glad Lorien is gone, so we don’t have to put up with any more of his fortune-cookie philosophizing passed off as profound ancient wisdom.
I didn’t care for the joke about “Ah, hell” being Minbari for continuous fire. I mean, in a proper command structure, particularly when it comes to something like firing weapons, there should be a protocol for repeating and verifying an order, like, “Ahead flank speed!” “Flank speed, aye.” That way, there’s no misunderstanding, and if the subordinate repeats back the wrong order, the commander can correct it. In this situation, you’d think someone in the Minbari crew would’ve recognized it was odd for Ivanova to order continuous fire at nothing in the middle of hyperspace, so realistically, someone would’ve asked for clarification rather than just blindly opening fire. (And I don’t buy it’s just a different Minbari custom to instantly obey without question, because as I just said, such a custom would be impractical and detrimental in any plausible command structure.)
You have to pay the actor who confirms the orders.
Granted, which is part of the reason that many works of fiction gloss over the repeat-and-confirm protocol in scenes aboard military vessels and the like (the other reason is to streamline the narrative). But I like it when productions do depict it properly.
The whole editing around Ivanova’s “Ah, hell” line feels odd. The way the scene cuts to the outside shot with the White Star guns already blazing. It felt like a last-minute rewrite/reshoot done after the episode was already filmed. Almost as if Claudia ad-libbed the line and JMS felt inspired to make that joke during the editing process.
Well, no, there was on-set dialogue of Lorien telling Ivanova what the phrase meant in Minbari and Ivanova telling them to cease fire. They would’ve had to go back to the soundstage and reshoot the entire scene if it had been an afterthought, and there’s no way B5 would’ve had the time and budget to do reshoots for such a frivolous reason. The joke must have been there in the original shoot; it’s just an awkward edit on the VFX shot.
I disagree about the First Ones possibly starting over somewhere else. Once the Shadows/Vorlons realized that they had screwed up in shepherding the younger races, what would be the point in trying somewhere else? Maybe some of the other First Ones could stay around since they basically ignored everyone in any case, but again, what’s the point? Better to all go off to a new adventure beyond the Rim and leave the playground to the youngsters.
I just dislike the implication that this handful of civilizations represents the entire galaxy. It’s analogous to the problem with time scale I talked about before, reducing 13 billion years of galactic history to just Lorien, the First Ones, the Vorlons & Shadows, and us, which is ridiculously oversimplified for such a vast span of time. Treating this comparatively tiny handful of civilizations as if they represented an entire galaxy of 400 billion stars is an equally absurd failure to comprehend cosmic scale.
I just get sick of the pervasive tendency in mass-media science fiction to treat the entire galaxy as a single, small place. Few people seem to grasp just how enormous it is. One good thing about Star Trek‘s cosmology (mostly) is that it rightly portrays the few hundred or thousand civilizations that humanity has contacted in a mere 3-4 centuries as just a tiny fraction of the galaxy as a whole, as well as (usually) treating journeys from one side of the galaxy to the other as a matter of decades, and almost always avoiding intergalactic travel altogether, except in rare cases with extremely souped-up propulsion methods.
I think the resolution of the Shadow War was probably the worst victim of the rushed storytelling in this, what JMS assumed to be the final season. I think it could have worked if Lorien had played a bigger role, say, by dragging the rest of the First Ones back from beyond the rim of the galaxy.
Also I think that nothing really illustrates how much television has been changed in the last quarter century by DVD box sets and streaming like the fact that they felt they needed a flashback to the scene between Vir and Morden in season 2. At the time, that would have been helpful; watching it now, it almost feels like they’re explaining the joke.
From what I understand, while there could have been an extra episode or two leading up to “Into the Fire”, I’ve read online that JMS has claimed the entire resolution to the Vorlon/Shadow arc was always designed to take place entirely in this episode, even if they’d gotten advance notice of a season 5 renewal.
Not quite. From his newsgroup comments at the time: “The “Into the Fire” thing, for instance… it would’ve likely been a two-part episode, but it still would’ve ended up exactly where it ended up. A few more big explosions, but I wonder also if that really adds anything past a certain point.”
I don’t know if JMS assumed it to be the final season; he just planned for the strong possibility that it would be, while leaving his options open in the event that it wasn’t.
And I don’t think a bigger role for Lorien would’ve made anything better. Not only was Lorien a poorly conceived and unimpressively acted character, but it kind of works against Sheridan’s whole “We’re all grown up and don’t need elder races holding our hands anymore” when the eldest alien of all was holding Sheridan’s hand the whole time.
For what it’s worth, in the B5 scriptbooks, he is very clear that they knew as early as the end of Season 3 production that Season 4 would be the final season. While they were working hard behind the scenes to find a solution to get a fifth season, JMS wrote the entire fourth season based on the cancellation notice.
Okay, but since they did still believe there might be a way to get a fifth season, I would submit that means they did not “assume” the fourth would be the last. Assuming implies closing your mind to other possibilities.
In a strange way, the Vir payoff is the first time I’ve ever seen a “monkey’s paw” setup used against the opposition.
From his first appearance, Morden made Faustian bargains which he always paid off on, albeit not necessarily the way the other party wanted. He weaponized their greed and ambition to fulfil the agenda of his masters, without fear or regret.
But then he asked Vir the magic words. And Vir, thinking not of himself but selflessly of his people, told him what he wanted. And at the end of the day… the bargain was fulfilled.
Vir Kotto is the only being in the Galaxy to beat the Shadows at their own game.
I really enjoyed this ending when it first premiered.
Watching it again as I got older; I have to agree the Shadow War ending was anticlimatic.
After rewatching this episode I found myself reassessing the comment I made on the first episode of the season. I still wish that the final conflict with the Shadows and Vorlon happened after the arc comes next in the season, but it’s not because the Shadows and Vorlon are more powerful enemies than what comes next.
It’s because I wish that humanity would stop being isolationist a-holes and join the greater galactic community. Humanity developed the Babylon Project and the only group who try to live up to those ideals are the small group who live on Babylon 5. Not even any of the colonies or ships that broke away from EarthAlliance help.
I think I would be happier if there had been a throwaway line somewhere about how Captain Akello and the crew of the Castor helped White Star 26 defend a colony on Zeta Tau 2 from the Shadows. At least then we’d know that there were more humans trying to live up to the ideals of the Babylon Project.
While I agree that everything happening on Centauri Prime was some magnificent stuff, like Keith, I also had issues with the end of the Vorlon/Shadow war. And yes, I do understand that JMS had to rush and condense two seasons of story into one.
The scene where we saw the Shadow and Vorlon holo-images on the White Star looked so pathetic. While Keith described as two children, it reminded me more of Mom and Dad getting divorced and the kids have to decide who to live with.
Sheridan yelling “Get The Hell Out Of Our Galaxy.” Excuse me, but exactly how is it your galaxy? The Milky Way is really big (currently at an estimated 200 Billion stars) and you’re claiming all of it. Exactly how do you get to do that? Especially since Earth and the Human race was on the verge of being wiped out just a few short years ago. And I really doubt that the entire galaxy has been explored and claimed.
And why do the Shadows and Vorlons (as well as the other First Ones) go Into The West, er, Beyond The Rim? Why not travel to other galaxies and explore them? There are currently estimated to be about Two Trillion galaxies. What, none of those others are worth going to? Just ours is the only one of any worth or interest?
And don’t get me started on “The Third Age Of Humanity” garbage. It’s the Third Age just for Humans? What about the Minbari, who have been spacefaring for well over 1,000 years? Not to mention the other races on the show? Just Humans. Pul-eeze.
As I have said before, JMS had some really great ideas, but he really need a good script editor he could trust .
They are rejoining the other First Ones, as Lorien underlines. The problem is that, with only the Walkers appearing (once) as characters and no sense of relation to the Vorlons/Shadows aside from hostility towards the Vorlons, there’s nothing to make us think either Vorlons or Shadows care about the other First Ones.
“JMS had to rush and condense two seasons of story into one”
FWIW, JMS disputes this. He has consistently stated that the original plan would have had the season end with the events of “Intersections in Real Time”, marking a difference of a handful of episodes vs. an entire season.
Whether one believes JMS is, of course, a subjective decision ;)
“Whether one believes JMS is, of course, a subjective decision ;)”
I have never believed JMS when he said things like this.
Your criticism of the scenes with Sheridan telling off the Vorlons and Shadows – I don’t think that’s the right angle we should be looking at. It’s not Sheridan’s speech that settles this galactic crisis. Rather, we should look at what happens just before: the Shadow planet killer fires a missile at their White Star, and one of the Drazi ships intercepts it, sacrificing themselves. At that point, it becomes clear that the Army of Light will hold their ground to their last ship. At that point, the children have made themselves heard and will not tolerate further parental oppression, even if they have to die to earn that respect. Thus, the Vorlons and Shadows realize if they keep this course of action, they will have no younger races left to heed their lessons – they will have failed. That’s what makes this ending work: the action, not the speech.
As for the execution in-scene, this might have been an issue in the direction. It’s been reported that JMS was pretty dissatisfied with Kevin Dobson’s work on this episode – he might have had something to do with the performances of the Vorlon and Shadow envoys during that final confrontation. The result of course was Dobson never came back to do more shows.
Thus ends one of Babylon 5’s biggest, most memorable story arcs. My favorite part of this is definitely that final extended scene with Sheridan and Delenn cuddling as their ship approaches the station (and I adore that the scene never cuts away and the VFX do their job of selling the station getting bigger outside the window). The feeling that they’ve accomplished the biggest feat in galactic history – not unlike Frodo and Sam surviving the Ring and Mount Doom – and now the galaxy feels a bit smaller and cozier, as they begin to plan a brighter and shinier future free of fear and pain. Just beautifully scored by Chris Franke.
A side note: losing Foundation at the end of season 3 thankfully had no negative impact on Babylon 5‘s VFX output. Netter Digital was able to keep up the quality for the most part (and Foundation more than made up for it with ST Voyager’s VFX). The battles leading up to Coriana and the big clash itself are visual marvels – I adore the POV Starfury shot in the middle of it, and the White Stars goading the Vorlons in the lead-up also look like a cohesive flock of birds weaving back and forth.
Season 4 can often feel rushed and cramped, but personally, I still feel it was a smart decision to end the entirety of the Shadow/Vorlon story arc on this episode – including the Centauri side of the story. To think that Sheridan’s split-second decision to call in the First Ones to take down the Vorlon planetkiller about to blast Coriana was the very thing that forced the Vorlons to call off their Centauri Prime planetkiller just as Londo was about to off himself. Years of parallel stories coming together for this final resoluton. Just satisfying all around.
And to top it off, they add the fallout of the Adira situation – a story that began in “Born to the Purple” way back then. Seeing Londo’s reaction to the minister and the subsequent thrashing of the quarters is just cathartic. Finally realizing he’d been played all along, all these years. Every furniture he tosses about hits hard, but not nearly as hard as his angushed screams.
And then we get that delicious final standoff against Morden*. I love the way Morden puts up that fake salesman smile telling Londo the ships will stay put for a good while, and then Londo takes out the Shadow bodyguards. Without backup, Morden can no longer hide his fear. From this point forward, Morden is on the defensive, and we’re hearing the real him, all the while Londo plays their back-and-forth like the real puppet-master, knowing how it will unfold all the way to the surprise reveal and the detonation. And Vir finally gets his long wish as a result. This is serialized storytelling at its best, with a payoff that feels earned in every way.
*WTH was up with Morden’s hair in this one, for that matter? – was he trying to adopt a Centauri hairdo?
IMO, it’s just ’90’s hair, and I think fairly similar to how Morden’s hair was in earlier episodes.* It also gets kind of bunched up and messed up when he’s furiously fighting against the Centauri guards who are hauling him away to be tortured as he spits his last lines.
*If you want to see weird Morden hair, compare how closely cropped it is when he shows up again in “Day of the Dead.” Totally different there from how Morden always looked.
No, I also got the impression that he was trying to fit in with Centauri styles. Or at least that the only hairstylists available to him in the Centauri court, once his hair grew back, were ones trained to create Centauri noble hairstyles.
Come to think of it, if he was bald and radiation-scarred just weeks ago, or however long it was, he shouldn’t have that much hair grown back yet. So maybe it was a wig.
I never like scenes of dozens of starships clustered tightly together in a space battle, because they’re ridiculously close to each other. It’s called “space” for a reason. There’s no sense in having spaceships so close to each other unless they’re docking. At the speeds they travel and with the energies they give off, they should keep a much greater distance from each other. In particular, enemy ships should keep a great distance from each other so that they have time to dodge each other’s fire. Having space battles between ships as close together as naval vessels on the ocean or tanks on a battlefield is just Earthbound thinking. Ironically, 1960s Star Trek with its more limited effects had more realistic space battles than modern CGI productions, because it hardly ever had two combatant ships in the same shot as each other.
I hate how cluttered space shots in general are these days, not just with hundreds of battleships crammed together like cars on a freeway, but the constant environmental clutter of big nebulae and absurdly dense asteroid fields. And it was B5 that started that unfortunate trend. Putting big bright Hubble Telescope nebula photos in the background of space scenes must have felt like a cool novelty at the time, but it came at the expense of credibility, because nebulae aren’t that ubiquitous and those colorful shots are very long exposures with false colors to make them look prettier, so the real thing wouldn’t look anywhere near as bright or vivid. (I mean, Babylon 5 is supposed to orbit Epsilon Eridani, which is less than 11 light years from Earth, so its sky shouldn’t have any more nebulosity in it than Earth’s night sky, but instead we’ve always got those bright green background clouds.)
When you talk about ships being so close to one another, I immediately think of Starship Troopers and the space battles in which you see ships crashing into one another because they all so close. No space in between at all just in case.
Like you mentioned Keith, this episode has some of the best scenes of the entire series. When you first started this rewatch, the scenes that first came to mind were the elevator scene between Londo and G’Kar, then this episode. The confrontation with Morden, Vir’s little wave, and Alexander saying they had pissed off the Shadows and the Vorlons. They were all incredible and I really appreciate you going through the series so I can relive them again with everyone here.
Wonderful article Krad! I still remember Durano’s voice all these years later – Barnes was (and still is!) so good.
The issue here is that we’ve had a grand total of perhaps five First One characters on-screen: Kosh, Ulkesh, miscellaneous Vorlon in War without End, the Zog guy, and Lorien. Prior to this episode, no Shadow has directly communicated at all.
So how do you present the Shadow/Vorlon representatives, speaking for their respective races as a whole, and manage to characterize them? Getting Wasser to do the Shadow voice was clever, but beyond that, you have to sell a change in about five minutes of screen time. Part of the issue is that both sides have to sound desperate: the Shadows suffered a huge setback, Lorien abandoned them, and the Vorlons are blasting planets; the Vorlons in turn are being attacked by the White Star fleet they helped create and the Shadows are busting planets, too.
Boxleitner and Furlan sell their parts of their conversations with the Vorlons/Shadows, but there’s not much sense of urgency in them. That, plus maybe a little time for the realization to hit home, plus the reminder that the others departed for the Rim, leaving the Vorlons/Shadows behind to teach the Younger Races, not murder them… Lorien as a character just doesn’t suffice. The episode is clear that they have been exposed as manipulators and as having lost their way, but a flickering image of an Encounter Suit and a CGI Shadow don’t convey distress well enough. I feel like Lorien as a character is the problem: he tries to be hands-off, but it feels like his solution and that undercuts the underlying message.
If we had another First One character with a John Shuck-sized personality who helps gather the other First Ones but is otherwise disconnected from what’s happening and has to be convinced to help, then he could underline the points Sheridan and Delenn make here and sound like he’s agreeing where Lorien seems to be affirming something he already knew: we need not to feel like Sheridan met God who swept in and Dad-fixed thensituation, but rather like a disinterested babysitter recognized the others grew up and wanted to help communicate that fact. Lorien is simply too load-bearing not to get in the way, especially when it’s THE First One talking to two barely-existing characters.
Quoth Narsham: “The issue here is that we’ve had a grand total of perhaps five First One characters on-screen: Kosh, Ulkesh, miscellaneous Vorlon in War without End, the Zog guy, and Lorien.”
Fewer than that, as I believe Ulkesh and the miscellaneous Vorlon in “War Without End Part 1” are one and the same.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I think you nailed the review. A real mixed bag with an end to the four season Vorlon/Shadow arc that just felt weightless. I agree it deserved a two-parter and a lot more death, destruction and sacrifice to give the convlusion the narrative and emotional gravity it needed. Still, as you noted, the Centauri stuff was stellar.
I’ve been lagging behind on the re-watch, and generally getting to read these Rewatches far too late to comment, but I am finally caught up enough to join.
I largely agree with your review, Keith. I am with the group that feels the reasoning behind the Vorlon/Shadow conclusion mostly works, but the execution left a ton to be desired. I do remember when I watched this episode originally I was on the edge of my seat, so the issues didn’t seem as glaring at the time.
The one issue I had that you didn’t mention is the use of the “brave captain leading troops into battle” trope for the battle to destroy the Vorlon outpost. It is such a bog standard trope that most people (even the group here) don’t even comment on it, but in this case it was almost singularly inappropriate. Given the way the resolution to the war played out, clearly as Sheridan and Delenn planned, the two of them were utterly, uniquely necessary and had to survive to the final confrontation. No one else was established sufficiently to act as negotiators with the Vorlons and Shadows. Putting themselves together at risk in a relatively trivial battle was reckless in the extreme. Story wise it would have made just much sense for Marcus to lead the attack squadron (since Ivanova was off finding the last of the first ones), and had him report to Sheridan on the success immediately after rejoining the fleet.
Yes, I realize it was mostly about having your leads play the biggest parts possible, but even more than in other episodes it just threw me off here.
“Seriously, I can watch the Centauri Prime scenes in this episode over and over and over again…” I can and I have, probably more than anything else in this entire show. Nearly every line and delivery is solid gold that I can remember them by heart despite not actually watching this show in many years.
Other fun little details (like Durano said, “the details are everything”): In the scene of the White Star attack on the Vorlon outpost, there is a brief sound effect that is used that sticks out like a sore thumb: it’s the sound of a door opening from the classic first-person shooter Doom 2.
And while I don’t know how many takes they actually did of the scene where Londo trashed his quarters, it’s clear that it was blocked very carefully and the camera moves rehearsed so that it could all be done in one shot. The problem is… the camera points to look at things Londo is *about* to trash, long before he actually moves to trash it, thus telegraphing his rampage.
Some good points covered already, but on a rewatch it becomes much more obvious how much Lorien is just a preposterous “EZ Button” to make the plot work. Need to rescue Sheridan from what seems to be a certain death? Lorien. Need him to have a ride back to the station? Lorien. Need Sheridan to have exactly 20 years of life left? Lorien. Need to assassinate a Vorlon? Lorien energy. Need to find the First Ones, a task previously incredibly difficult and time-consuming? Lorien. Need to talk to the First Ones, a task previously almost as difficult as talking to them in the first place? Lorien. Need to telepathically communicate with the Vorlons & Shadows? Lorien. Need to broadcast that conversation? Lorien. The end of the war feels unsatisfying for the reasons mentioned, but another thing going on here is that this guy shows up at the last minute and just has all the abilities the plot needs to move things to an orderly resolution. His recurring presence shall not be missed.
Good grief, you’re right. He’s an ongoing deus ex machina.
Can’t argue with just about anything you said, krad, but in (very weak) defense of the “beginning ot the third age”, I don’t see much of a way around the way it was handled – for several reasons. One was – Sheridan’s “Get the Hell out of our galaxy!” was pure, re-incarnated Sheridan. Garibaldi wasn’t far wrong when he accused our illutrious captain of having delusions og godhood. So Sheridan yelling at the Vorlons and Shadows fits. That, and given that JMS (and everyone else) figured they’d only get four seasons, there had to be some (well, a lot) of compression of the storyline. Lorien, as the understading parent corraling his children, was a stretch. An absentee father trying to make up for lost time?
So, I cut JMS *some* slack, here; the rest of the episode was, as you say, superb, imho.
Still catching up on watching B5 and commenting on Keith’s articles. The Shadow War story arc was always my favorite one in B5, I always like a reasonably well done story of a fight against hopeless odds. However, as some others commented, “Into the Fire” felt like a rather rushed conclusion to a story arc that had been building for several seasons. I do not mind that there was not a big battle to defeat the Shadows and Vorlons, since in universe that was not feasible. However, perhaps another episode or two would have helped resolve things without using Lorien as a Deux Ex Machina to allow for a quick resolution. Speaking of Lorien, on my first watch of B5 I thought him interesting, but found him much more annoying and flat character this time. The one thing that resonated for me was when he spoke at one point of the sorrows of being an immortal and watching all you loved die over time, that could have been explored a bit more if there was time and perhaps would have made him a more satisfying character.