Join Laura and Xhafer, two internet strangers as they get to know each other while making jokes about one of their favorite TV shows from their childhood, Babylon 5.

Laura and Xhafer attempt to recast Sheridan. Meanwhile on B5, Ivanova gets some new toys, Londo gets a promotion, and Sheridan takes a one way trip to the Shadow homeworld in Babylon 5, Season 3 Episode 22: Z'ha'dum.

Hello and welcome to, who Are You?

It's a Babylon five watch cast by a couple of former strangers, now friends

who are continuing to get to know each other over one of their favorite

shows from their childhood, Babylon.

Five.

I'm Laura,

And I'm Ja.

and today we are asking who should play John Sheridan.

Yeah.

Little fan re casting.

Still no news on our reboot.

But we're gonna continue this bit out of raw optimism.

Just this unfiltered optimism over here, hoping

that we will get this someday.

if I can have one outlet of optimism in my life, it's

gonna be this fan casting.

And by that I mean, I have one outlet of optimism in my

life, and it's this fan casting

Boy, that's dark.

I hope you have other outlets to fair.

I do.

But yeah, so we're, it's uh, Zaha Doom is a big Sheridan episode,

Yeah.

here to talk about today.

So it seemed appropriate to recast our captain.

And yeah.

Who do you have in mind, Laura?

Who are you thinking?

Well, so John Sheridan's a hard one, right?

Yeah.

My head, at first I thought to myself, well, who's

a real Bill Pullman type?

Because I think there's a very very good connection between like Bruce Box

Leitner and Bill Pullman vibes, right?

I'm not

Yeah, I feel that.

this.

Okay?

And so I just started out googling Bill Pullman and I found out he's

got a son that is in the right age range to play John Sheridan.

Okay.

So I was looking at Lewis Pullman he's recently been in Top Gun

Maverick, apparently, and also played major, major, major, major in Catch 22.

Okay.

I watched that.

Military stuff, we can, he can do this, right?

He's, he's got military chops here.

Mm-hmm.

I'm gonna need him to like fluff up his hair more, though.

He doesn't have fluffy enough hair for a John Sheridan for me and a lot of

these headshots that I'm looking at.

So we'll have to figure out some styling.

Fluffy hair also factors into my fan cast, and I really

appreciate that you bring out it up.

Yeah.

I definitely want him to have, like the other actor that I looked at was Adam

Scott, cuz he's got some good swoopy dudes in some of his work, right?

He's got the second Swoo pickiest hair in parks, in rec.

Yeah.

of course, second only to John Ralphio.

John Ralph, my fave.

So I'm thinking, you know, if, if we can't get Louis Pullman's hair

right, maybe we have to go with Adam Scott, but what about you, Jaire?

Well so I had originally, like when we first talked about

this bit, I'm like, I know exactly who I want to fan cast as Sheridan.

Like this was the, like when we talked about doing fan casting, I'm a, like,

I want Olivia Wild as John Sheridan,

Right?

and it's in my head.

And this was.

A while ago now, and when going to do research on Olivia Wilds to talk

about this bit, having figured, oh, I've got this one in the bag.

This is gonna be the easiest cold open I found out.

She's actually said some really terrible shit.

Ugh.

That's

apparently very homophobic from what I was able to find on online.

She said some really homophobic stuff.

So no, you don't get my fan cast anymore.

Olivia Wild for that reason.

So that was a bummer.

So then I'm like, okay, well I've gotta think about who I want to be, my captain.

And my immediate first thought, of course is Anson Mount, who

I always want to be my captain,

Yeah.

Oh, captain, my Captain Sen Mount.

for sure a hundred.

Yeah, he's great in strange new worlds and I don't care.

I don't care.

I don't care.

I don't care.

He'd be great as John Sheridan.

But in the interest of not just projecting my dreams into reality and maybe picking

something that is a little bit more grounded and also a little bit closer

to what I originally wanted to do, cuz I thought it'd be fun to do Olivia

Wild because of Tron and Tron legacy.

So I want someone who's got some like 20 year old sci-fi chops that

was kind of a young hot shot in a movie, and now we can see them

progressed into a more mature role.

I did go for something a little bit more military than Tron.

I'm thinking Starship Troopers and I'm thinking Casper VanDyne.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

hair.

He has not said anything terrible.

I could find over with about five minutes of Googling.

And he's, he's got the look.

Yeah.

Full disclosure, I didn't Google to see a flu.

Pollman was problematic.

I just am enough of the Bill Pullman vibe, so hopefully he's not

yeah, yeah, I think Casper got the look definitely has the background.

Has done a lot of really terrible sci-fi movies and stuff, and like just b movie

acting and I feel like, I feel like he could do a really good job with it given

something that's got a little bit more.

Seriousness to it.

Like there are instances uh, and I'm sure we can all think of something like this,

where a great actor can elevate dialogue.

Like a great actor can take shitty dialogue and make it great.

And a great writer can take as high caliber actor and elevate them with

great dialogue written for them.

Yeah.

Sure.

Sure.

And I don't want to like shit on Casper VanDyne but he

is like a b plus player at best.

You know, he's, he's not out here getting Oscars for best actor.

He's not someone who you think of when you're like, who elevates their craft?

You know, he's not a Juan Carlo Esposito, you know, who can take

DRL and make it interesting.

So I think having someone like JMS in his corner would allow him to

elevate his craft to the next level.

Yeah.

I'm looking at, you know, just the basic Wikipedia here, and I'm seeing that

he not only rode the Starship Troopers train, he rode it all the way to Starship

Troopers three, which can't be great.

It's not, I've watched all those movies.

Okay.

There's a lot of really, really bad ones.

There's a, I think the two was not great.

Three was bad.

The animated one was real rough.

guess for VanDyne, that's my pick.

Yeah, I like.

All right.

Well lacking a good segue.

I will, I do want to call that this episode was directed by Adam Nemoy,

which I thought was super fun.

Oh really?

Yeah.

I can see why we had Adam on this one, cuz it needed a strong

director and I think we got one.

Yeah.

There's for sure, there's lots of very uh, wide open, kind of very

scenic style shots that I think his, his eye lenss itself well, too.

We've got season three, episode 22, Zaha dumb.

Did I say that right?

Yeah.

I mean,

I'm, I'm gonna let myself make that

once.

it, right?

Yeah.

That that's what it looks like.

Right.

Nailed

Nah.

Season three, episode 22.

Saha to

Yeah.

So we get a last time on as we open.

We see where we left off in the last episode.

Anna Sheridan showing up in the middle of the night,

Mm-hmm.

breaks the snow globe.

And then we all are shocked and

Yeah.

That Anna's here.

Anna Sheridan.

We get some flashbacks to the Icarus and Mr.

Morden reminding us how dead Anna is.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That, that good look for Sheridan episode comes back up.

Yep.

Yeah.

So then once, once we've wrapped up the, the past there a little bit Sheridan's

just kind of slack, Jad staring at Anna.

Mm-hmm.

And she's kind of a jerk, like right off.

She's so len's just like, nope.

And gets the hell out of there,

That's

fair.

good on her.

I, I gotta imagine I would do the exact same thing in a similar situation, just

like you guys got some shit to figure out.

I don't need to be here for that.

But

there was a minute where it looked like John was gonna try and stop her like he

goes to, and then he just stops himself.

Mm-hmm.

That is the right move.

Yeah.

I don't know if, if she was thinking if Dylan was really thinking about

it, like, the only way this person is back here is somehow related to

this big enemy that we're fighting.

Like maybe you shouldn't leave.

Like should you leave him alone with her?

I don't know.

But.

I get

it in the

moment.

That freaks you out.

Yeah.

And the second she does, Anna's all like, what do you mean you thought I was dead?

Dalen didn't tell you I was alive.

Dalen knew I was Del Livo.

You trusted

Ooh, ooh.

Just takes that ax and starts the wedge them apart

immediately and nothing grinds.

Sheridan's gears quite like being manipulated and you can tell immediately

because the first thing they do is go down to med lab to be all like, okay,

well you're getting checked the fuck out.

Yeah.

I mean there's, this is the logical first step at least, right?

I would hope so.

Yeah.

gotta get this checked out.

So we go to theme and back from theme, Kar has found some nuclear weapons.

Yeah.

Just some nukes.

Just a

few.

a, bunch of them,

Yeah.

It's like 50 or something, right?

It.

Yeah.

It was like 50 or 60 nukes from the guy.

uhhuh.

These are like special nukes.

They're not gonna show up on scanners.

Extra powerful.

And of he's showing these off to AANA of a Of course she's thrilled.

Yeah.

Really weird that they'd bring up these nukes and then just turn away and not

bring it up for the rest of the episode.

Huh.

Yeah.

Weird place setting, I feel

in that for later.

Right.

I d normally jms, I don't want to call this sloppy,

Mm-hmm.

But having this scene in this episode is a little like,

It's un, it's, it's not his style.

I feel like we should have gotten this at a Z minus four, which by the way, where

the hell was the Z minus in this episode?

Oh, I thought, hmm.

You know, I thought I was writing those down and I didn't write one down, so.

Yeah,

there wasn't.

I don't think there was a Z minus in this one.

guess it's just Z now we're

there.

Interesting.

Yeah.

No, sloppy is not the word I would use.

I have a different word for it, but I'm gonna save that till the rating.

Okay.

That's fair.

So after this, by the way, so we go down into me lab after we hear about the

nukes, and Franklin is checking out Anna.

And it's only been two days since he was stuck in a wheelchair and forced

to delegate, and he is now actively moving around med lab with a cane and

doing everything himself all over again.

Huh.

Hmm.

I wonder how well that lesson stuck.

Yeah.

Go to

Hmm.

Yeah.

Let's hope he's seeing the chief counseling officer or

whatever, off screen somewhere.

Yeah.

So he th he's confirms This is Anna, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

The DNA matches, you know, everything.

Every check that he can run, he's like, I've got a couple more tests.

But it's, it's not looking like it's gonna be easy pickings here.

This isn't just an hard No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There, there's this thing maybe on her neck.

I gotta look at it a little closer back of her neck.

Kind of weird.

I don't know,

but it seems fine.

So after this Sheridan goes and talks with Delan Wall,

Anna's still getting checked out and he is pretty upset,

Yeah.

because if she knew that his wife was possibly still alive, just

even the slightest possibility and then entered into a relationship with him,

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

there's definitely some unethical implication there on Dalen and

Dylann's.

Like, look, they either killed her or she volunteered either way.

That's not your wife no more.

yeah, I mean, she's not wrong.

Uh I think Bruce Box Leer did a really bang up job in this episode.

I wrote that down pretty early.

With his, emotions around these two ladies, especially around dead wife.

Like it was all really good, really believable.

And you know, I think one of the things Dylan says is that part of the

reason they didn't even entertain the idea that Anna could be alive is that

she and Kosh were both afraid that he would take off and go to Zha dom and

they both know for some reason that he should not go to Zha Doom, right?

Yeah.

And he's been told he can't go to Zaha Doom enough that when it comes

up this time, he pulls out his phone, buys a Delta Comfort plus ticket,

one way to Zaha, do immediately

in his mind like he is going, and he is gonna be comfy for the ride there.

He has already decided.

If I can't go there, I must go there.

It is a ball.

I'm a five year old then you have told me no.

Yeah.

And he's not the kind of man who can accept mysteries in life

and that some things don't have answers.

And he knows his answers are on z hadum.

I

mean, he's gotta get him.

He's gotta get him.

Dalen owns up that Anna basically cannot be the same.

No one leaves.

Aha.

Unchanged.

Yeah.

I wonder if that's foreshadowing.

Hmm.

Put a

pin in that

about this whole thing.

Yeah.

There's one, there's one cute little line that I just wanna call out,

which is Dylan says she loves him and if he never believes another

word that she says to believe that

Yeah.

that

that was nice.

Mm-hmm.

But speaking of people who are pissed.

Yeah.

Not the only one.

Yeah.

Wado is a little bit distraught at being promoted.

He's not happy about it.

Yeah.

He's talking to Veer and he's had a messenger or, or, you know, some

sort of message that the Royal Court wants him to be an advisor.

He's been promoted.

Yep.

And he's just like, well, one, I should have gotten this job 20 years ago

when I was young enough to enjoy it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Fair.

I, I get, I, I don't know, I, part of me feels like that's skeezy as fuck.

Like that's a really skeezy comment to me.

But also I have said that about a job that I've had in the past.

Because I was, I spent five years traveling around the country for work,

and I did that in my mid to late twenties.

And it was a great time to do that.

You know, when I did not have any kind of real obligations tying me to

an area, I got to just go and explore and stay in cities over the weekend

when I wasn't working and just like see America on the company dime.

And I'm super fortunate I was able to do that.

And if I were to do that job now you know, I'm a couple years away from 40

I would not have the same experience.

I would go home or I'd go to my hotel room and sleep and I'd come home on

the weekends and I'm sure I'd do some stuff sometimes, but not nearly to the

level that I did when I was younger.

And so maybe I should give Londo the benefit of the doubt, but maybe

I should remember that Londo is a fucking genocide and we can't

Yeah.

Yeah.

He, he, it's very entitled to say, I should have had this 20 years ago.

You know?

Yeah,

Well, you, you didn't for some reason, huh?

Weird.

Yeah.

And then while they're having this discussion, alluding that Lando

is going to have to go home to the cent entire home world, at some

point a mysterious guy shows up

and says, Hey, if you wanna live, you should get off this station.

Yeah.

We have mutual associates and fears, just all like Morden and

Orlando's, like, who the fuck else?

Yeah.

There's one person we call an associate on this damn show.

Right?

Human dressed in all black without a sky.

P cycorp pin must be morden.

Yeah.

Must be shadows somehow.

Yeah.

Franklin finds something in Anna's brain scans, which we get

really quick before it moves on.

And uh, then we cut over to Anna who basically says that her old self is dead.

And without saying it exactly she's like, look, I'm doing

important work on Zaha Doom.

I'm going back.

Anything that remains between, like there's, I'm not staying

on Babylon five with you.

I need you to come back with me to have this meeting.

And that's all she's really interested in talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She's very flippant about having been on Zha Doom for so long without messaging

her husband, seeing her husband.

Like if Anna was unchanged right.

Mm-hmm.

And she had just stayed on Zha Doom and not called Sheridan at all this whole.

Like, dude, that is not your wife, but like, even if she hasn't been manipulated

by shadows, like who does that?

Who does that?

So,

Yeah.

She's like, there is no conversation that exists in her mind that is

about them getting back together.

mm-hmm.

Like that is not an option that her mind is considered or something

that she's interested in talking about.

That's done.

Th their marriage is dead, and she does not make any pretense to save it.

She's all like, you need to come back to Saha Doom to hear what

my bosses have to say to you.

Not even to come stay with me because my work is so important

and I can't leave it behind, you know, or to come join this work.

That's not what she says at all.

You know, that's not what the interest is.

Yeah.

And it's not come with me because I love you.

Like there's no.

Yeah,

be lies.

I mean, it would be lies at this point.

But Sheridan is starting to crack, but he's not gonna go

with her without some answers.

First

yeah.

So we get a little bit of backstory on what actually happened with

Interplanetary Expeditions and the Icarus.

We learned the source of the location of Zaha Doom wasn't a probe, as we had heard

in a previous episode, but rather a beacon that they had placed on the shadow ship

on Mars that we saw back in season two.

Yeah.

Gu Baldy told us about this ship at least.

Right.

And that he and Sinclair happened to see it, both of them.

Mm-hmm.

When they were stationed on Mars.

yeah.

Yeah.

She says that an accident killed the crew of the Icarus.

Yeah.

And some kind of accident Killed a thousand people.

Yeah.

So not everyone died, obviously cuz she's here.

Right.

But uh, killed some of them.

They got to basically just stay and study the shadow technology in

exchange for not contacting anybody

and playing dead.

After this, when we cut over to Sheridan's office he gives Garabaldi a

reason to get the crew off of the white star and some miscellaneous tasks, which

Guerra Baldi puts together immediately.

Yeah.

And he's just like going over this list.

It's all like, make sure no one gets back on the white star aft until this.

Sure, whatever make sure that Dalen gets this message in case, you know, I don't

get a chance to record or whatever.

Make sure two nukes end up on the whites, and he's like, what?

This is a lot of trust, a lot of trust between Garibaldi and Sheridan here.

Yes.

And the, the, the story of their ability to trust each other.

Mm-hmm.

This is the first, like, remember the first time

you were on a roller coaster

Maybe.

and it started, it started pulling you up.

And like you have that moment of anticipation knowing that this something's

happening and like you have a general idea of what's gonna happen, but the

exact emotion of it is still foreign.

Yeah.

That is this moment, that moment on the rollercoaster as you

start to get pulled up the first time and this moment with the two of them

and the trust, it's that same moment and the ride, that the relationship

that is these two is about to take,

Yeah.

starts moving.

Mm.

Garabaldi takes the list and he agrees.

And then when they see each other again, they're going to talk about the weather.

If it was all done.

Yeah.

That's the code word.

Sheridan starts getting ready as the ghost of Kosmas past,

reminds him that he's gonna die.

yeah.

As if he could forget this.

Everyone keeps telling him.

You're gonna go to Za.

If you go to Zaha Doom, you're gonna die.

He's not only heard it from Kosh, he's heard it from Future Dalen too.

Mm-hmm.

And I would think Future Dalen would have a pretty good handle on that.

It's her past.

Right.

Well, she doesn't say he's gonna die clearly, and he knows that he's

in the future, so he must survive,

yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

But she did tell him don't go.

yeah.

Well, yeah.

She tells him don't go, and we find out why in a couple of episodes.

But also he of course, as all humans do in this sort of thing, when

you're confronted with that sort of time, travel, past, future, what happens

says, well, well, what if it all happened because I listened

to her and didn't go to Zaha.

So I have to go?

No.

No, she would, she would've said, go to Zaha Doom.

Then if she had figured it all out,

yeah.

but that's

travel.

He gets on the white star with Anna and they head out, and

then dramatically after he leaves, Franklin reveals that he found

something wrong with Anna's scans.

And also Sheridan knows there's something wrong with Anna's scans, like this

clue's communicated to him before.

yeah, we saw at the end of like his conversation with Anna, a screen

that showed the two brain images or whatever, so we know it was in his hands.

Yeah.

Sheridan and Anna make it to the shadows base.

She takes his gun as they head underground, but we know he packed two,

uh, we saw him pack a second gun already

and they enter the room with Justin and Mr.

Morton.

Sheridan asked Justin, who are you?

And it's great because he just refuses to answer that specific question.

He dances around it and doesn't answer it at all.

it's great.

It's just like he's, he says a bunch of cryptic shit and then he is like,

oh, but you can call me Justin.

Yeah, it makes him visibly uncomfortable to be asked this question.

Mm-hmm.

Just like it was visibly uncomfortable for Anna to be on a partially voor on ship.

Yes.

Yeah, she did not like it.

She voiced it a couple of times.

I think that she was not comfortable here.

Yeah.

She didn't even try the bed.

Right.

So point of order here.

Mm-hmm.

How long do you think they're on the white star together?

Yeah, that we don't really get a sense of that, do we?

Like how long it takes to get from Babylon five to Zaha doom?

It happens very fast.

I feel like this is why we lost our Z minuses, because we were at

Z minus two days when Anna showed up.

They can't be on the station together more than 12 hours top.

Yeah.

Like they don't go to bed, you know, there's no sleeping.

It's the same d she shows up at midnight or whatever, and they get

on that ship before the end of that.

Yeah, totally.

So that means we are Z minus a day and a half

Mm-hmm.

of travel, just hanging out with Anna on the white

star for a day and a half.

It's so strange to me that if that's, if this is true, that Zha Doom

and the sight of his wife's demise was a day and a half away this whole time, and

I mean,

was never tempted

fast, but yeah, it's like I know that there's like a

consistent set of traveling that the show pretty much adheres to.

But at the same time, Traveling through hyperspace, JMS has

been all like, it's different on purpose because hyperspace changes.

So it's like he's gonna, it's like he set up the thing of it for his own plot

convenience, so that he wouldn't have to worry about being told by nerds.

He was wrong the whole time.

So, so good on him

for that foresight.

Having been to a Star Trek convention before making this show clearly,

Yeah.

No.

having sat in the room where people were asking those questions at

a Star Trek convention before but yeah, it's like a day and a half and like that

has to be the most awkward car ride ever.

Oh yeah.

With someone who is like clearly uncomfortable with and disdain your car.

Right.

And that you don't know what they are anymore and

Yeah, it's a whole thing.

It's so awkward.

Anyways, back to where we were.

Justin gives this whole speech I don't, I tuned it out.

It sounded like boomer shit.

Dalen gets her message from Sheridan uh, who notes that, his

experience in the future from before.

And as we inform mentioned, you know, maybe we can avoid this thing.

And just like the raw bravado to just be like, well, pass me fucked up.

Well future me fucked up and future, you told me that.

Pass me fucked up, but I'm gonna do better this time.

You, yeah.

The hubris.

Right

Okay.

Sheridan, good luck.

Uh, yeah.

we cut back to Zha Doom and both Justin and Morden are like trying

to justify the shadows position.

You know, the, the wars and the shadows were the races that stayed behind after a

bunch of older races moved on, that they were supposed to shepherd these younger

races into something better, I guess.

yeah.

This is the worst Anne Rand timeshare pitch in history.

Yeah.

He just wanted his blender and he's stuck listening

to this for six hours, I'm sure.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And the shadow.

Yeah.

Right.

The shadows are just like, we're just weeding the garden of life or whatever.

Genocidal, sociopaths tell themselves to sleep at night.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I feel like this is come up in human history before.

Hmm.

Yikes.

They, they say basically that their, the uh, their philosophy is to

make others stronger by conflict.

Yeah,

let them kill off the weakest and the strongest will flourish.

And

that's that's not how any of this works.

Mm-hmm.

Like if you take 20 minutes to think about survival in a of the fittest

in any regard that isn't specifically like hunter prey, kind of like who's

the best at catching dinner style, the second you bring civilization into it,

the entire thing goes out the window.

It has no legs to stand on whatsoever.

And when you then, when you start factoring in things like

weapons of mass destruction or.

Guns the, the, the vacuum of space, like all of these things

are immediately out the window.

Survival of the fit is, has not applied to civilization in thousands of years.

And will continue not to.

And it's just like,

there are lots of situations where cooperation trumps strength every

Yeah.

I wa I'm trying to think of something I said earlier.

Not even on this podcast but I think it might've been on my old podcast

draft of the universe, I said that Thanos has the understanding of a

15 year old who read the dust jacket of the tragedy of the commons.

yeah.

I feel like the shadows have the understanding of a 15

year old who read the dust jacket of Darwin, like it's just absurd.

Like they, they, they heard a thing and they thought they made a connection

and they've decided to base their entire civilization around it without

questioning whether or not it was a good idea in the first place.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The,

It reminds me of something I heard once that Economics 1 0 1 has done a

terrible amount of damage in our country in the last, you know, couple of decades.

Everybody takes Economics 1 0 1 and they think they understand economics, and

yeah.

yeah.

You, you spend 10 minutes learning about malice and you think you're

a fucking expert, and you're like, oh, well, disease in war will just

happen to bring the population down.

It's like, no, you're, you're a fucking idiot.

You're, you missed the point entirely.

Congratulations.

Yeah, that's the

shadows.

That's the shadows.

Ugh.

Oh God.

I could rant about people who think they understand economics, but don't.

For

literal, I've done it for days.

Days.

I've spent days of my life doing this, and I will for the rest of my life.

Such as the curse of actually studying economics.

but on Babylon five, we have a shadow fleet that is descended

all of

a sudden detected in

C N

C.

Yeah.

They just show up.

They're just here to hang.

They got the invite, you know, it's four 19.

They know it's going down.

They're just ready to hang out, you know, they're like, we

just showed up a minute early.

No bigs.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Big panic in c n C.

Yeah.

They are not happy about this.

They are.

They are fucked and they know it.

Mm-hmm.

They try reaching out to draw, but they can't get through

Yeah, that's, I'm glad we brought that up because draw should be, Draw

Draw should be firing from, from the planet right now.

Yeah, draw shouldn't, should know that they're in distress.

Right.

Even if they can't reach him, especially if they can't reach him.

Right.

He can see the shadows right there.

I think Draw can kind of see everything and so I think the reason Draw

doesn't act is because he knows it's okay.

Oh, he knows that Sheridan's on Zaha doom

Yeah.

He knows that this is the backup plan right now and that what he knows, that

he knows that Sheridan's got the nukes.

He knows Sheridan's plan.

He is, I don't think he is concerned for Babylon five.

And that's why he doesn't just fire,

Okay.

Okay.

That, that.

I will buy that.

I'll take some head cannon there.

The time chair pitch continues.

The VO ones are fascists, which yes.

Yes, yes they are.

But just because you're fighting fascists, actually uh, which, which camera's po

at Stalin and Dick Cheney right now, I wanna, I wanna make sure they hear this.

Just because you're fighting fascists doesn't mean you're not a piece of shit,

It, these two things don't, aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Yeah,

right?

Just, just because you don't like the fascist doesn't mean that you

aren't a fascist or a genocide or a terrible sad excuse for existence.

Yeah.

You can, you can be fighting fascists and also be a fascist like I can.

Yes, lots of fascists fight fascists.

They're competition.

Good point.

So the volans have been unfairly manipulating this, this

process and chaos evolution.

Is this better idea according to Mr.

Morton?

they know about the volans seating telepaths around.

Which we learned about in book club specifically the,

the actual process of that.

And uh, yeah, they've, they've decided to get into that.

So they've confirmed that they have a presence in Cycore.

They've decided to turn these weapons, the volans we're creating against them.

The shadows are like Sheridan.

We just want you to get everyone to stop playing.

Nice.

Because then humanity will win and that's what you care about, right?

Humanity winning.

Humanity's a grace.

It shows great promise.

So just let all these other weaker races fight it out.

Yeah.

Some humans will die in the war, but whatever.

You know, y'all fight amongst yourselves.

He'll be fine.

Yeah.

We, we can't just kill you

because if we

Thelen will take your place.

Yeah.

The, the

I'm gonna kill Thelen.

We gotta kill Marcus.

I'm gonna kill veneer.

Like the list goes on.

Yeah.

We need you to go back and so discord instead.

You can't, you can't just uh, become a martyr here.

And Sheridan's pretty pissed.

I mean,

yeah,

this whole episode is Sheridan being in an emotional state of some kind.

yeah.

Rightfully so.

So he plays his hand.

Look, I know that's not Anna.

I know she was put into a shadow ship.

Like I know way more than you think.

I know.

And just like I know this shadow is sneaking up on me right now.

And he grabs his pistol and starts blasting.

Yeah, Justin tried to tell him that she chose poorly.

So at least he can, you know, go out knowing that the real Anna

did not wanna serve the shadows.

And so this is literally just her body.

And the person he loved didn't dramatically change other than dying,

Yeah.

didn't betray him in any

way.

Yeah, definitely a dramatic change.

But she didn't betray him.

She didn't betray what he thought she was and the person that she was.

So that's gotta be some sort of comfort, right?

Mm-hmm.

We Cut over to Kar, who tells us that two nukes are missing, so we can cut back

over to Sheridan, who's a fucking wreck.

Yeah.

I wanna know what, like what was the fight

is the implication here?

Yeah.

Did he just like fight off at least a shadow,

like an actual shadow, like that was crawling up on him

with its giant knife hands?

Did he like fight that thing off?

Presumably Anna Morden and Justin,

Uhhuh.

like he had to get all, he had to get away from all four

of them with a, with a pistol.

And he was surrounded.

Yeah.

Did he like get to beat Morden's ass this time?

He looks like he was in a physical fight, like he is.

He is not just br bloodied, he has bruised, like there's been, he's

been punched like shit has happened.

Yeah.

he made it out alive and he finds the shadow city.

He calls down the white star, activates the nukes right as this

message tells Dalen that he loves her.

And just before the giant, or just before the white star hits the

giant skylight in the bathroom, Kashi's voice tells John to jump.

So he does into the Giant Pit as the nukes go off on Zaha Doom.

What a fucking sequence.

Yeah, this is good.

It's so good.

They put it in the theme for next year.

Yeah.

Iconic, if you will,

Mm-hmm.

Uh, Yeah.

This sequence is just like, what a move.

that piece of Kosh that Lida detected and said, Hey, there

might still be a piece somewhere.

That really came in handy, didn't it?

It did.

And this is the last of it too.

I think, I mean, we haven't watched, I haven't watched

in a season four in a while.

Uh, You know, it's been, been a couple years.

It seems

Logical way to go out.

I mean, even Kash is like, he says something along the lines

of when you go to Zha Doom, well, I'll be with you, but that will be

the

yeah.

Yeah.

Like I will go, this piece of me will live in you

effectively, and it's going to die at

Zaha Doom.

Mm-hmm.

So

Yeah, it would've been a nice touch if we could have worked in

something about either Anna or the other two, Morden and Justin, like

feeling uncomfortable in some way.

Like they could kind of feel Kosh and makes them not happy.

I would vibe with that.

If they weren't so anti telepath,

Huh.

like I think the way you would've done it is if Ster

had shown up between Kosh dying.

And Sheridan going.

And when he like was in the room with Sheridan, like Sheridan like

was glowing or something, like there was something different about him

that he like physically saw, not like an active scan, which would

set off a whole other conversation.

But like if we had had a scene where we had like seen Sheridan through Buster's

eyes and he was like cooling or something,

Yeah.

think that

could've been Or

maybe had wings, like angel wings or something.

Like you can do some, a couple things with it to make him look a little more vlan.

Yeah,

would've been a lot of fun.

yeah.

Anyways, the Shadow Ships retreat and Ivano takes it as

a sign that Sheridan is dead.

Uh, The only reason they would leave leave is if we're no longer a threat.

Yeah.

Uh Oh.

And then Kar gives us our end of the year wrap up.

It's the end of 2260.

My favorite line to this is it's the universe is holding.

Its.

Mm-hmm.

That was good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Corwin can't raise the white star.

Turns

out,

one, one of the fighters that scrambled to try to save babbel on five from all

those shadow ships didn't come back

and it was Mr.

Garabaldi.

Yep.

And we see him in a shadow, like we see his star fighter in a shadow ship.

Yeah.

Not a good sign.

And uh, then we end on the smoking crater of Zaha with a couple of shadow ships.

Flying around, assessing the situation, perhaps.

So very bleak way to end a season.

Yeah, I mean, the name of the season was point of no return.

It feels like we hit a couple of those, and this episode is for sure one of

'em.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, you had teased us a little bit at the start with a hint

as to your rating of this episode.

Yeah.

And so I'd really like to hear your rating of this episode

on scale of babylon's one to five.

before I put numbers on it specifically I said, That sloppy

was not the word I would use for a specific part of this episode.

Right.

A word I would use for this episode is rushed.

Everything felt rushed and when you know the context of what

was going on with the show.

And we think we're not gonna get a fifth season, so

we're trying to cr I thought it had,

Okay.

I'm not a hundred percent sure I'd believe it.

But it does, the episode definitely felt the pacing was

not as solid as some other ones.

Yeah.

It feels

like we were cramming too much story into this spot.

Yeah.

But I also don't feel like this needs to be a two-parter.

Um, I feel like this episode needed 10 minutes,

like

five, 10 more minutes.

Yeah.

And it would've been great, but that was a lot harder to do back in the day,

Yeah, that's true.

You know, in streaming world, we can just tack out another 10 minutes.

Who cares what,

yeah.

Who, who cares how long the episode is?

You're not short-changing any advertisers.

You're not running into the next show.

Like, it's fine.

But I don't know, I, I do feel like I needed more than one

episode with Anna Sheridan.

Yeah.

I feel like we could have established her a little bit better

and, and maybe had a little more like mystery about, what happened to her.

Is she really real?

Is she not real?

Like we could kind of like 20 minutes of that and then we

know exactly what's going on.

I felt like there could have been a little more with.

I agree with you about the nukes, like maybe the nukes could have

been planted a little earlier.

Um, If we'd had two episodes, we could have kind of done that.

Yeah.

I, the way I remember this story, this part of the

story, I almost do remember it.

Like it was more than one episode.

A little bit longer on Z Hadum even could have

Yeah.

Like all of that kind of comes down to maybe another 20 minutes.

yeah.

You know, maybe you could cut a little bit of stuff out of, and the rock cried out.

No hiding place.

You know, get, get something about the nukes there before Jaar leaves maybe,

or maybe he can't have those if he knows he's going to home world that

might add a complication to things.

Whatever you could figure that out.

You know, do that.

Move a couple things out of there.

Maybe cut a little bit out of the Franklin walk about stuff to just

get like a little bit of breathing room at the end of the episode.

And then when share, when Anna shows, when Anna Sheridan shows

up, do a little bit more with it.

Move that conversation from the start of this episode and the flashback

stuff to the end of that episode.

Mm-hmm.

And then get yourself a little bit more space in this

one to do a couple of things.

But

I mean that we're playing 3D chess now, like it's all over the place.

There's all kinds of considerations to be made.

And, and we have the benefit of like, storytelling

has changed in 30 years,

because of this show, so we can only give it so much shit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So all that said, like, I feel like it was rushed.

I wish certain parts of it had been a little more, but this

is still a very solid episode.

I don't know if I can give it five out of five, cuz I have those criticisms

that like, ah, I wish there was more, but it's definitely four out of five for me.

I mean, it's solid.

Yeah.

No, I had it a four and a half.

It's a great episode.

I really would've liked to have seen the fight with Sheridan

and the three of them in the shadow.

Yeah.

But that's my only real, like, heavy complaint.

And maybe that was, you know, all, we had the giant action

sequence a couple episodes ago with the big shadow fleet fight.

So maybe you didn't want to do another one so soon.

Maybe they couldn't afford to,

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

there's, there's, it's the end of the season so you, you know,

how many c g dollars you've got left.

So maybe it was a budgeting thing.

I don't know.

It just felt a little off, out of like that scene.

But besides that, four and a half outta five.

Mm-hmm.

Alright, well that's our season.

It is.

So what do we have coming up?

well we've got a couple things listener.

If you've been with us since the beginning or gone back and are listening through,

you'll know that we have a little bit of a different cadence when we get to the end

of the season than our normal episodes.

We're not gonna go straight into season four episode one.

We're gonna do a season three recap next week.

The week after, we're gonna have a book club, which is gonna be

the Cycore Trilogy book two.

We're then gonna take two weeks off for our own sanity and uh, editing

catch up and to give us a little bit more leeway with the baby.

Uh, That, that, that's our excuse this time.

We only get, we only get to use that the once, but we take two weeks off

at the end of every season anyways.

And then after those four weeks, between the two episodes and the two weeks of

break, we'll be back with season four episode one, which is Hour of the Wolf.

But I'll read the episode description

Yeah, leave us hanging just like this cliff hanger

at the end of the season.

Did, although, did you look at on your, I guess you're on Voodoo, right?

Yes.

Did you look at the episodes on Voodoo?

Does it have the air dates all of your episodes?

I have no idea.

Okay.

Because we noticed on, we were watching on iTunes or, or the Apple tv, whatever you

call it these days that the air dates for end of season three, beginning of season

four, were remarkably close together.

really.

Yeah, and I guess I should have Googled it before I sat down

here, but I'm gonna do it now and try to figure out if that was right,

because it was like season three.

This episode was like October of 1996, and the next one was in November of 1996.

I'm gonna

That's real tight.

If they, if it was that tight.

Then that would check out with the uh, the counting clock of the show

and the whole season four thing.

Yes.

Okay, I'm confirming it.

I am looking on the Babylon five fandom Wiki,

Zaha Doom, season three episode 2022.

First aired October 28th, 1996, the Hour of the Wolf, season four,

episode one, November 4th, 1990.

Yeah.

That's not how I remember TV working in the nineties, but I was a child.

See January to October for season one.

November to August for season two.

November to September for season three.

November to October for season four, and then January to November for season five.

Mm-hmm.

So they must have been taking.

Long breaks in between airings at that point, cuz they're, that's like, that's

not running an episode every week.

You know,

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

like you're having to skip

Yeah, I'm

cuz.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Look at it.

So I just pulled up all the dates.

So War without End part two, May 20th Walk, about September 30th.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Um, Although it did air in August 18th in the uk So that's,

that's your big jump right there.

So they probably saved these episodes to start the next one.

Yeah.

That's why there's so little break, cuz Yeah.

It's, it's October 28th.

November 4th.

That's, that's next week.

Yeah.

a week

So they just, So they just, end effectively.

They ended the.

At War Without End, and then you had to wait your five months

for the last five episodes.

Oh, that's some real sci-fi channel shit.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I just, I was a child at that time, so I didn't have the context

of like why the network would be doing these things or even what they were doing.

Like you just hear.

Oh,

well, it's

gonna be a

while.

It's all over the place.

It just goes to show you how spoiled we are now with this, the

streaming environment where sometimes things will drop all at once.

There's a few of the networks that are stringing some things out,

like, you know, new Star Treks are one a week and when H B O Max is

doing a Game of Thrones, one a week.

But we're really spoiled with all these shows that drop all at once.

And then these podcasts that record every week.

You know what else?

We're really spoiled with

Mm-hmm.

theme music from Jeremy Siegel.

We really are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can find more of Jeremy's work at Jeremy Siegel 40 two.bandcamp.com.

Also on the Spotify uh, nuclear Jaguar wire.

Has the March album dropped yet?

It has not.

And not at the time of recording, but it will be out before this episode.

I am

I'm sure.

Yeah.

As, as if it, if it's, if it's happening.

I haven't talked to Jeremy about it.

Uh, cuz my Facebook friend request is still pending Jeremy.

Oh, rude.

I'll say something.

But I, I did actually, I sat down with both the albums

the other day and they're great.

I really liked them a lot.

I really liked there it is an ebb and flow off January.

It was really good.

And I know

March is in process cuz I have seen some postings about it.

Okay,

cool.

I'm looking forward to it.

and uh, also we're spoiled with great podcast artwork from Angry Deck Time

Mm-hmm.

Thank you Angry duck time machine.

Thank you Aaron for editing our podcast and putting up

with our collective bullshit.

Really appreciate you.

we do.

Yeah.

And thank you to you listeners for also listening and putting

up with our collective bullshit.

We couldn't appreciate you more.

We really appreciate everything you guys do in the community.

Who are you?

B five gmail.com.

You can shoot us an email you can find us on Twitter.

But if you follow us, know that I will look at your Twitter and then

ban you If you post a bunch of uh, turf shit that happened this week,

Oh, no.

Unfortunate.

I got no problem saying my pod, this podcast like is not for you.

Like,

I

can't imagine liking a podcast on Twitter and then getting blocked by them.

But we do it.

Hmm.

Don't post hateful shit on the internet.

It's not hard people.

Yeah.

It's not, but here we are.

The Discords where it's at.

Love our Discord community.

And yeah, we'll see you all next week for our season three recap.

right, bye.