Jason Ironheart, Talia Winters' old instructor at Psi-Corps, arrives at Babylon 5, having recently evaded capture. Psi-Corps agents Alfred Bester and his assistant Kelsey arrive shortly thereafter, and meet with Sinclair, Ivanova, and Winters, warning them that Ironheart is aboard and they need to perform a manhunt for them. To verify that Winters has not yet met him, Bester and Kelsey put Winters under an intense mind probe, but find no contact. Sinclair asks Bester if there is any danger to the station from Ironheart, but Bester assures them he is safe.
Ironheart contacts Winters and asks her to visit. In his guest quarters, he explains that he is an advanced test subject from Psi-Corps, an attempt to raise the telepathic abilities of humans well beyond any known levels. The tests they performed on him gave him advanced telekinesis, for which he believes that Psi-Corps wants to use him as a secret assassin. However, his abilities are growing beyond his control, and as he speaks to Winters, he suffers a "mind quake", shaking the nearby area violently. He begs Winters to leave, after which he creates a psychic barrier around his quarters and several sections around it. Alerted to the situation, Sinclair accosts Bester in lying to him as one of his security men was injured trying to pass the barrier. Some time later, Winters convinces Ironheart to let her in. Ironheart warns Talia that he cannot control his powers and must leave the station. Winters discreetly relays this to Sinclair, who agrees to meet with Ironheart; after hearing his story, Sinclair agrees to help him escape. He has security clear a path to the docking bay, but Bester learns of this and attempts to stop them. As both Bester and Kelsey places Ironheart under a psychic assault, but Ironheart resists and uses his powers to psychically destroy Kelsey. Sinclair knocks Bester out, giving Winters time to escort Ironheart to his ship. Once launched, Ironheart's powers fully transform him into an ethereal being. He thanks Sinclair for his help and gives Winters a "gift" before his form departs. Later, Sinclair convinces Bester to lie in his report, that Ironheart was killed in his ship, otherwise he will threaten to show how Bester lied to him. That evening, in her quarters, Winters finds she now has primitive telekinesis.
Meanwhile, Catherine Sakai is told of a planet named Sigma 957 which an excavation company would like a survey of, willing to pay her a handsome sum for it. As she prepares, Narn ambassador G'Kar warns her not to go, as the planet is inhospitable and not worth the effort, but she goes anyway. When she arrives, a ship of alien origin passes hers in orbit before disappearing, and her ship loses power, causing her orbit to decay. However, she is rescued in time by two Narn fighters summoned to help her by G'Kar. Back on Babylon 5 she asks G'Kar why he helped, and he vaguely passes on a sound reason. She also asks about the ship, but G'Kar deflects this question as well, saying that there are beings that have been in the galaxy much longer than they have, and compares her encounter to that of an ant being picked up by a human - they might not even know she was there.[1]
Production, visual and sound effects
Actor Walter Koenig, who played the recurring role of Psi Cop Alfred Bester, is best known for he portrayal of Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek series and films. Koenig was originally offered the role of Knight Two in the episode 'And the Sky full of Stars', but was unable to do so because of health issues. Koenig was shifted to the role of Bester in this episode.[2]
Jason Ironheart was played by William Allen Young, an actor and director who has starred in over 100 television, stage, and film projects, including two Academy Award-nominated films, A Soldier's Story and District 9.
The Babylon 5 makeup department involved in this episode – consisting of Everett Burrell, Greg Funk, Mary Kay Morse, Ron Pipes and John Vulich – won the 1994 Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Makeup for a Series for the previous episode of the season, "The Parliament of Dreams"[3]
For its visual effects scenes, Babylon 5 pioneered the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) scenes – instead of using more expensive physical models – in a television series.[4] This also enabled motion effects which are difficult to create using models, such as the rotation of fighter craft along multiple axes, or the rotation and banking of a virtual camera.[5] The visual effects were created by Foundation Imaging using 24 Commodore Amiga 2000 computers with LightWave 3D software and Video Toaster cards, 16 of which were dedicated to rending each individual frame of CGI, with each frame taking on average 45 minutes to render. In-house resource management software managed the workload of the Amiga computers to ensure that no machine was left idle during the image rendering process.[6]
The scenes of the rail car travelling through the interior of the station were created by effects designer Eric Chauvin. The production team built a set of the rail car, which was filmed in front of blue screen, and the core background was rendered and composited by Chauvin.[7]
The Starfury fighter design seen in the episode was designed by Steve Burg as a function-driven design for a plausible zero-gravity fighter. The positioning of the four engine pods at the extremities of the craft was inspired by Ron Cobb's design for the Gunstar fighter from The Last Starfighter.[8] The basic shape of the Starfury's wings was inspired by an earlier unused design by Burg for a military robot fighting machine, which he had originally designed for Terminator 2. This was merged with the multi-engined configuration to form the Starfury design. Burg points out that the wings/struts were not aerodynamic: they were there to lever the engines away from the center of mass.[9]
Music for the title sequence and the episode was provided by the series’ composer, Christopher Franke. Franke developed themes for each of the main characters, the station, for space in general, and for the alien races, endeavoring to carry a sense of the character of each race.[10]
Reviews
Rowan Kaiser, writing in The A.V. Club, identifies transcendence as a key theme of the episode. He singles out an exchange between Ironheart and Talia: "'I am becoming.' 'Becoming what?' 'Everything.' And he does. The episode ends with him becoming an awkward CGI energy being, essentially a god."[11] Kaiser also identifies that how G 'Kar describes the beings at Sigma 957 is going to apply equally to Ironheart.[11]
Elias Rosner, writing in Multiversity Comics, highlights the performance of Walter Koenig as Bester. Rosner writes, "He does a great job of making telepathy and, well, everything look menacing and shady. He's transparently evil but not in a way that's cliché or over-the-top. You never know if he's hiding around a corner, listening in, and he makes sure you know that. He's the right amount of cold evil and gives just the best deliveries of the episode. He is Bester."[12]
Jules-Pierre Malartre, writing in the science fiction review site, Den of Geek, notes that the episode is episode is "heavy on sci-fi and social issues", and deals with concepts such as "equality and the potential of human evolution."[13] Malartre also highlights Walter Koenig's performance as Bester: "Babylon 5 would produce a number of villains over the course of its five seasons, but Bester comes out as the best of the lot, thanks in great part to Koenig's unique performance, at once charismatic and chilling."[13]
Related Research Articles
Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. After the successful airing of a test pilot movie on February 22, 1993, Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Bros. commissioned the series for production in May 1993 as part of its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). The show premiered in the US on January 26, 1994, and ran for five 22-episode seasons.
Susan Ivanova is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Claudia Christian.
"Midnight on the Firing Line" is the first episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5, following the pilot movie, "The Gathering". It first aired on January 26, 1994. It was notable for being the first regular television episode which used computer-generated imagery rather than physical models for its special visual effects. The episode also marked the beginning of the first science fiction television series where the entire series had an overarching storyline, which the writer J. Michael Straczynski described as "a novel for television".
"Soul Hunter" is the second episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on 2 February 1994.
"Born to the Purple" is the third episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5.
"Infection" is the fourth episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. "Infection" was the first script written for a regular Babylon 5 episode.
"The Parliament of Dreams" is the fifth episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. The Babylon 5 makeup team won an Emmy Award for the special alien makeup design for this episode.
"The War Prayer" is the seventh episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on 9 March 1994.
"And the Sky Full of Stars" is the eighth episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on 16 March 1994.
"Deathwalker" is the ninth episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on 20 April 1994. '
"Survivors" is the eleventh episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on May 4, 1994.
"The Coming of Shadows" is a key episode from the second season of the science fiction television series Babylon 5. It won the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
Lyta Alexander is a character from the fictional universe of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Patricia Tallman.
Jeffrey Sinclair is a character in the fictional universe of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by actor Michael O'Hare. He was a regular in the first season of the show, as Commander of the Babylon 5 station, and made a number of guest appearances afterward.
Babylon 5: The Gathering is the test pilot movie of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, aired on February 22, 1993. It is also the first of six feature-length films in the Babylon 5 media franchise.
"Believers" is the tenth episode of the first season of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. It first aired on April 27, 1994. It follows Dr. Franklin's ethical dilemma after he encounters a dying boy whose parents refuse to allow him to receive treatment that will save him, and Commander Susan Ivanova's mission to rescue a stranded transport ship in Raider territory.
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales was intended to be an anthology show set in the Babylon 5 universe. It was announced by J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, at the San Diego Comic Con in July 2006. Straczynski has described the stories as ones he had for the Babylon 5 television series, but never had the time to produce. Only one installment, titled Voices in the Dark, was produced before the project was shelved.
Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label in association with Straczynski’s Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. After the successful airing of a pilot movie, Warner Bros. commissioned the series as part of the second year schedule of programs provided by its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). It premiered in the United States on January 26, 1994 and ran for the intended five seasons. Describing it as having "always been conceived as, fundamentally, a five year story, a novel for television", Straczynski wrote 92 of the 110 episodes and served as executive producer, along with Douglas Netter.
References
↑ Straczynski, J. Michael (1994-03-02). "Mind War". Babylon 5. Season 1. Babylonian Productions. PTEN.
↑ Britt, Ryan (11 July 2019). "5 Things that Babylon 5 did that changed science fiction forever". www.syfy.com. SYFY Media LLC. Archived from the original on 2021-10-09. And though this may seem shocking now, in the early and mid-'90s, CGI was not the default for sci-fi special effects. Most big sci-fi shows and movies (like Star Trek) all still used physical models, which are notoriously more expensive. But all of Babylon 5's spaceships and space stations were made in a computer.
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