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.

Season Three is in the books! Laura and Xhafer discuss the season as a whole and pick their favorite moments.

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 Jafa.

And today we're gonna recap season three.

We've already done three seasons of this show.

Laura,

I know.

time is a fickle mistress

Yeah.

Tell me about it.

Especially right now.

soon.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's crazy to think about that.

This is like, you know, 20 something episodes a season, like we've been

releasing, well, when this releases, we've been releasing episodes for

like a over a year and a half.

That's true.

Yeah.

So that's, that's a thing.

we've gotten into a really good part of the show.

Oh, the best part of the show.

A hundred percent.

Season three.

I would say front half of season four is probably my favorite.

This back half of season three, front half, season four is

like, The best this show is.

Which is not to say that there aren't good episodes on their way

past that, or stinkers in the middle of it all because there have been

and there will continue to be.

yeah.

Spoilers.

overall fantastic, fantastic

This one is like, I had no trouble making my notes to kind of like

recap the season that that went fine.

But when we got to the part where we kind of rank and rate some

things that got really hard because there's so much good stuff in here.

Yes.

And this is also the last season that's not compressed.

We should probably talk about that a bit cuz it really impacts next season.

Well the rest of the show really because the five year plan for Babylon five in

year four P 10, the network that the Babylon five was on, starts to go under.

Mm-hmm.

And so season four is seasons four and five compressed into one season.

Yeah.

so the pacing dramatically changes instantly once we hit season four.

Yeah.

And I remember even when I was watching it the first time, like feeling that

compression and it feeling weird.

And I bet it's gonna feel really weird in a streaming environment.

It does.

You know, I, having re-watched the show in 2019 and 2020 I was like aghast at

when the end of the shadow war happens.

Mm-hmm.

It's a really weird spot, right?

it felt awkward.

It felt very like this is happening.

Like something start to align and you're just like, oh, this is it.

This is the end, and then it's over.

And you're just like, what episode am I on?

And you check and you're just like, fuck.

Really?

so fast.

It felt longer in, you know, the broadcast TV environment,

Mm-hmm.

When you're having to, you're a kid and you're having to wait a whole week.

You know, to, to find out what's happening.

And you think on the episode for the whole week, you know, you kind

of live in it, the last episode.

But yeah, in streaming when you can just binge it so fast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just, it goes so quick.

All right.

What was your favorite episode of this season?

Oh, this was so hard.

It was,

This was hard to choose.

I had several candidates written down

mm-hmm.

and I think, and I'm, I'm curious, I'm really curious because,

you know, we've been recording things.

A lot ahead and you know, it's been obviously a bit since we

recorded some of these, since, you know, 23 episodes in a season.

I'm curious if my picks actually line up with what I said

when we reviewed the episode.

Like looking back over it.

I thought about it and I think I'm gonna go with dust to dust.

Dust to dust.

All right?

Because it does have some of that telepath stuff

in it that I find interesting.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and we had Bester, we love Bester in it.

And then we had that whole interesting experience that Kar had

Mm-hmm.

the dust and then getting touched by a warland.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, it's maybe not the flashiest episode.

You know, we had War Without End and those were.

Oh yeah.

storytelling episodes.

But I really liked the way things came together in dust to dust and all of

the elements that we got within it.

So that was my pick for favorite episode, but I had a few other contenders.

What about your pick

It would be very easy, especially after my pontification

about how great war without end is,

uhhuh?

To just say it as my pick.

But it is a two-parter and I don't want to pick one or or two.

I feel like you need them both together.

And so I am using this logic to disqualify that from my options.

Also it's more fun to pick something else.

I feel there are other episodes of season that are great and uh, war Without End

is like parts two and three, my favorite three parter in all of television.

I just remember being absolutely wowed by it on first viewing in a way that, you

know, I know I can never experience again.

Yeah.

My favorite episode of the season, this watch through that wasn't War Without

End, was passing through, through gets,

Okay.

Yeah.

That's another strong contender, isn't it?

yeah, it's a really good fucking episode.

And Brad Durif is just so fucking good.

Yeah.

So yeah, I think that's, I think that's what I'll go with.

Uh, I did flip through, like I, I'm sure I've talked about this before.

I keep paper notes for every episode of the podcast, and so I have all

of my season three notes in the same notebook, and I was able to

just kind of like flip through them while preparing for this today.

And there's a lot of really good episodes.

But passing through thismy is the only one where in the note

where I make my rating section, I was just wrote five out of five.

Fuck, this episode is so good.

That's literally the only note I gave myself to record.

And I'm just all like, Okay.

I remember feeling that.

That's, that's gonna be the one.

Yeah, that is a strong episode.

The other ones I had written down, I had um, and The Rock right out, cuz

Mm, yeah,

moments in that.

Point of no return was another strong one that I liked, you know,

Yeah.

It's the name of the season episode.

Yeah.

I mean, that's gotta be a strong episode.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Well, if we talked about our favorites, let's flip the coin.

What is your least favorite episode?

Jafa.

Honestly,

Uhhuh.

I, I flipped through my, when I was going through my notes, I'm trying

to like uh, there's a couple that I really didn't like and I think the

one that, like if you were to tell me, I'm rewatching season three tomorrow,

Uhhuh?

Mm-hmm.

And I only have 23 hours or whatever.

Like I have to skip one episode in

Sure.

Yeah, I

And that's like the thing, like, yeah, I have to watch it

all, but you've gotta skip one.

I'm skipping ceremonies of latent dark,

Oh, okay.

Because honestly I mean the, the terrorist stuff and the,

the shooter plot and everything just kind of hits a bit different.

And did I tell you about the scare I had outside the movie

theater a couple months ago?

No, I don't think so.

Oh man.

Okay.

So Beth and I went and saw a movie and when we walked out of the theater in

between some cars right in front of the theater, there was a guy with an assault

rifle and like a ski mask in full T gear.

And we like bee lined away, got behind some concrete in a parking

garage and called the cops.

Uhhuh,

He was a security guard,

what?

labeled right.

And like, it was just a crazy moment.

And so obviously everything was okay.

You know, nothing, nothing happened uh, besides the cops bothering

this guy for being an idiot for not wearing a security thing.

I hope.

and why does security need an assault?

I don't know.

We're living in a very weird time,

Yeah,

especially the time that we're recording this.

yeah, don't go to that theater anymore.

But uh, yeah, so especially that like experience in my life, reflecting on

this episode in particular has just made me go, like, I, I emotionally

don't want to deal with this episode.

Yeah.

I don't know that it's fair to call it my least favorite for

that reason, but it's definitely the one I'm not revisiting anytime soon.

Yeah.

Least favorite is, is hard terminology in this season because

so much of it was so strong.

Even the episodes that had a weak, like a plot, if you will.

There was something interesting going on in the B plot or in the

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

I mean, we, we talked about it.

I grade 17 is like the famous stinker from the season, and even that

was a strong 35, 40 minutes of tv, you know, like Scott was saying.

It just kind of fell apart in a weird way.

Yeah,

But it, the, the idea of grade 17 is missing is actually pretty good.

It was just some execution things that.

Just didn't work in the end.

So yeah, if I had to pick a least favorite using the air quotes around

that I think I would go with Walkabout.

That's, yeah.

but just because the uh, the messaging was kind of weird and it,

it played really strange because, you know, we've been told that

he's got this bad addiction, but in walkabout we don't really see it

having any consequences on him yet.

Yeah.

It feels weirdly paste and timed knowing how the rest of that storyline goes.

Uhhuh and I really, in my mind, had walkabout having more of

the feel that we got from Franklin's character in um, shadow dancing.

So that was much more interesting in my mind.

That way than the episode that Walkabout was.

So that would be my, if I only have 22 hours or whatever to watch

the season, I would skip walkabout

It's fair enough.

And then our last of the three episode picks that we do, every

one of these is our underdog.

Pick the one that you were not excited to watch before you watched

it and then it ended up surprising you and you actually enjoyed it.

Yeah.

This one was really hard for me because I don't know that I had that feeling

of not excitement to watch any episode.

In episode or in of season three.

Oh, I

did.

You did.

Okay.

Well, you go first, then tell me about it.

I think I said this in the episode too.

A late delivery from Avalon

Oh, okay.

I could see that.

I remembered not liking, even in my most recent watch through.

I didn't like it um, but actually sitting down with it, taking

a more critical eye to it.

And then also you know, the context of under which I watched it, which was

writing notes for a comedy podcast.

Uh, You know, so that that changes your lens when you're viewing

something, you know, knowing I'm going into it to make some jokes.

You appreciate some of the moments of levity differently when you're not

sitting there like, oh, get through this cuz you didn't wanna watch it, you know?

So I, I'd definitely say a late delivery home.

Avalon won me over this time compared to previous watchings.

I mean, I unashamedly loved a late delivery from Avalon the whole time.

That was one of my favorites as a child and I was excited to watch it again.

So I can't like underdog that one, but I can see why it was for you.

I think, you know, if I have to pick an under.

I think maybe convictions was one I didn't feel as excited about.

You know, the, the bomber plots, again, kind of like the um,

shooter plot that you pointed out in ceremonies of light and dark.

You know, sometimes they just hit a little weird,

Yeah.

Especially, you know, that What year did this come out?

Was it 90?

Season three was 96.

Okay.

So 95 and 96.

So that was a point in time in 95 that Oklahoma City went.

A, a big one of those, a big bombing plot.

So I don't know, you know, just knowing that this was in the zeitgeist and

being talked about at the same time is kind of a weird feeling for me.

So not excited about convictions bomber plot, but it also has, and it the,

you know, little b story about jaar and Lando being stuck in the elevator.

Yeah.

And we get to see that like, dynamic and it sets up a big, big

character change for Jaar because we see him just like cackling with

delight over Rondo's, imminent demise.

And uh, not minding that.

It also means his own imminent demise and then he changes a

lot by the end of the season.

So I think for me, convictions surprised me a little bit.

And I would call it an underdog for that

All right.

So we haven't done this before, but we were talking about it

doing a little recap of the races.

So just kind of like where we're at right now with all

of the major galactic players.

Yeah.

to set that stage a little bit for season four.

Yeah, because it's, yeah, it's very, very important going forward.

Uh, So yeah.

So season three the naar

Mm-hmm.

remain defeated remain occupied, and the big change

for them over this course of the season was definitely in Kar.

Um, as their leader uh, he got solidified in that role.

It feels like season two he got challenged a lot more, and then by

the time season three was coming around, that was over definitely

by the end of the season.

And then his change through his experience of dust to.

Changes the trajectory of the entire species.

Yeah.

And we actually get to see, you know, Narn home world on the ground

a little bit at the end of the season in the rock c right out.

We see some of that like redness to the air the actual devastation on the ground.

We see a little bit of the like tunnels that they're kind of having

to resort to moving around in because it's not safe to breathe.

Outside, so we get a real f a better feel for what the mass driver meant.

You know, there was a lot of sh of telling us about what mass drivers do and now

we get to see a little bit of showing.

I still would've loved to see more, but that's something that we could get

today with our computer graphics and such, but maybe not as much back then.

And then the flip side of the, the coin would be what's going on with the sonari?

So I think that what we're told about the centara or what we see about the

centara happens a lot through the refill.

Lando conflict.

Yeah.

Yeah, we see a lot of that, like instability.

These old powers still jockeying for positions.

We know there's a new emperor because emperor turn

was passed away in a previous season.

But we haven't met the new Emperor yet,

No, we haven't, we haven't met Carta yet, but we've heard his name now.

Yeah.

We know he's in charge, so.

We get some of the like real flavor for that old

civilization through Linda Disty

in the season too.

Yeah.

Ugh.

I had forgotten about Linda St.

Yeah.

I couldn't, she really gives us that nasty racist flavor.

And then we see that it's not just like an attitude that's

being espoused by Londo, cuz we've seen Londo espouse this attitude.

And we've also seen veer kind of push back on it

a little bit, but then we get this outside character entirely who is

a, you know, very pretty young lady who has some really ugly ideas.

Yes, she is.

Ugh.

We don't do a worst character, but.

Yeah, we could have though, right?

She, she is, she'd be near the top of that list for me.

Yeah.

She's a special kind of evil and

Yes.

Yeah.

The, the, the so evil.

I didn't notice I was evil.

The uh, Captain Crunch.

Oops.

All evil of, of personality types.

Ugh.

I think she's a great example though.

If you wanted to like sum up the Sonari race really quickly, which I

think maybe JMS was trying to do that.

Like give us a, a quick summation of everybody else outside of Londo and.

Veer.

What's, what's the, the mood on the ground?

Like Linda St.

She's it.

Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

That would bring us over to, we can talk about the mbar,

Sure.

the mbar low key.

A lot happened for nothing happening this season.

Yeah.

There's a lot of set staging for the Mbar for Future storyline um, about

the uh, attitudes and the the changes in their culture coming out of season

two with the Great Council disbanding, which I think was at the end of season

I think so.

I think at this point we're, we have that internal division

already throughout season three.

Yeah.

If not, it was very early season three.

But it's just uh, it's about the, the wedge that's being driven in their culture

between the religious and the warrior.

Mm-hmm.

And so we get a little bit of background on those things

that are happening here and there.

Uhhuh, we get a lot of origin story

yes, yes, we do get, yes, we get a very important piece of their hi, the

most important piece of their history,

Indeed.

We, we find all about menari Jesus.

yeah, we know him a little bit better than you expected.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that, that origin story too.

We find out, you know, more about what the first shadow war was like.

So we get not only Mumbar stuff, but we find out a little more

about the first ones because we.

About VLAN involvement with the Menari way back.

And then we also know what the shadows were kind of up to because Deen's got

some records about how they conducted the war that the Menari remember.

Yeah

I think it's interesting too, we, we have internal division with

the Menari, you know, between the warrior cast and the religious cast.

And as far as we know, there's not really any outside involvement

in that internal division, right?

It's just a thing that's happening.

They're skimming themselves.

But when you look at the humans there is a lot of internal division as well.

We find out very early in the season and it's not all just humans being humans.

no.

We find out about the shadows and cyco and all of President

Clark's machinations in full.

Yeah.

By the end of season two in the start of season three,

which leads to the martial law and then the colonies rebelling and

then Babel and five splitting off.

And then after Babel and five splits off, there's like one or two little mentions

of like things back home here or there.

But they do a really good job of making earth feel very distant.

Mm-hmm.

Especially because we have alien ships around Babylon five that we

see, like defending that neutrality.

And so we don't just see any more like earth cruisers trying to roll

up and you know, institute that martial law again or something.

So it leads to a very different feeling when you think about earth now

compared to Earth then because it's not that humans as a species are the

bad guy, but earth gov definitely is.

Yeah, it's crawling with bad guys as far as we know, because we've seen Mr.

Morden in their offices

and we know what Mr.

Morden's all about.

Yeah.

So it's a very interesting juxtaposition.

Uh, It's one of the things I really appreciate, appreciate about Babylon five

is it's not, humans are not the good guys.

Right.

It's

humans are the heroes for the most part.

You know, our senior staff are all human, and obviously there

are other main characters that are not that are good guys as it were.

But just that knowing that that exists, that juxtaposition between

our senior staff and the rest of the human government and what you

would normally be considering, like, oh, well, human's kind of shitty,

Yeah, there's a lot of shades of gray in this show.

And uh, recognizing that, we are all complex.

Not everything is, is uh, black and white.

Easy.

Good guys, bad guys.

I appreciate that.

In a, in the narrative.

Yeah.

And we find out what the fucking shadows are about,

Mm-hmm.

Which I will uh, reference myself.

They have a 15 year old's understanding of someone who's read

the dust jacket of Atlas Shrugged,

Yeah.

Chaos is a ladder.

right?

Yeah.

It's just, ugh.

Yeah.

We started out this season with them to.

Be very obvious with it.

They're in the shadows, they're not open.

They're kind of just slinking around in hyperspace hitting stuff here and there.

We know they've helped this Inari do stuff, but they're

not super out there yet.

But by the end of the season we have openly outed them on Za Hadum.

Um, and we're also not hiding from them anymore.

We were also trying to like hide ourselves.

Our main characters, our major races that knew about them.

We're trying to hide their knowledge.

No, it's all out on the table now.

Yeah.

to

All out in the table and a smoking crater.

Yeah,

And then the forks,

yeah

they finally do something.

indeed.

And then fuck off promptly.

Yeah, we, we lost our main representative in a act of self-sacrifice.

Right.

He agreed to help knowing that it was going to kill him.

Yeah.

And then it did.

And you know, we, we've seen pieces of him leftover, so we know that volans aren't

necessarily just gone when they die.

Mm-hmm.

And we have, we've seen the new Rolon, but we haven't seen much of him.

We've seen him kind of be mean to Alita, I think, and that's about it.

Yeah.

Not

Kosh.

What, what do we call him?

present.

Yeah.

Kosh Plano.

Huh, just a judgemental douche bag.

Who brings up your failures on tv?

Kosh Point.

Oh,

Seems, seems legit.

Ugh.

Oh, that was still so good.

I'm so jealous of that.

Wit, that's such a good line.

I think that's all the major players.

That's all the major races.

And then, you know, the, the only other like group would be the

league of non-aligned Worlds.

Right.

And we've seen them actually kind of coalescing

yeah, they're kind of the league of aligned worlds now.

Yeah.

They're aligning.

Yep.

Congrats.

Well we had a bunch of themes this season, like we do every season, so we

should probably talk about those a minute before we get into some viewer responses.

I got two big themes for this season that I wrote down.

Yeah.

Rising Stake.

And the payoff as I'm calling it, tmtm tm.

Rising stakes is pretty self-explanatory.

I mean, we open on like Marcus escaping a centi occupied world

and end on Sheridan nuking the shadows capital and Saha dom, like

We're just upping the ante.

Yeah.

Constantly.

Raise it, raise it, raise it.

Yeah.

But the big thing for this season is the payoff because we are

finally at a point in the story being more than halfway, halfway through

where we are answering more questions than we are asking on a regular basis.

And this is how you fucking do television people.

Yeah.

The halfway point is when you start answering questions

and you can ask new ones.

Mm-hmm.

And the show does, but it makes a point of answering more than it's asked.

You do this at this point,

Uhhuh?

Yes.

the last season lost or the last two episodes.

No names mentioned currently airing sci-fi Star Trek show.

Yep.

I have had some trouble with this particular show.

I went off on the Discord today.

Today was the, was the pen ultimate episode of Picard and there was a rather

lively, spoiler filled conversation waiting for you after you watch it.

Laura, I'm not

Yeah.

I, I'm staying off the Discord until later tonight.

Yeah.

I don't think it's a big major spoiler to say that the season of the final season

of Picard has had a lot of questions and it's taken a while to answer them.

I don't think that's spoilers

And, I mean, there's a ton of shows that do this

too.

Uh, you know, we'll, we'll be frustrated by this when we switch over to

Battlestar Galactica in a couple years.

Yeah,

So

it can't be as bad as Picard

well, it's not, I'll say that definitively.

Oh, well, I mean, I didn't mean that that Picard is bad.

I meant that the, the tension that they've ramped up and not

answering questions has been

I won't say

the Picard

Yeah.

I'm not gonna say which is worse currently because Picard still has one more episode.

True.

You can't, you can't judge yet.

I can't, I can't say that.

And also I don't want to uh, ruin anything in Battlestar.

I don't wanna put a negative taste in your mouth before you watch it.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, themes season three.

What do you got?

Well, I, I kind of have themes that are maybe sub-themes cuz you picked

some very nice, big overarching themes.

One thing that I wanted to talk about was, you know, there's a lot of earth

entanglement, especially in the first half of the season where we see, you know,

the, the earth is going full fascist.

We see the fascist playbook where we take over the, the media that's out

there really control the narrative.

We see our main characters struggle a lot and they lose a lot while they're

trying to maintain their own ethics.

You know, they lose family back home and, you know Sheridan's not able to talk

to his parents and worries about them.

And and it's not just the fascism, but we also have the, the telepath angle.

Especially because we dipped into that a little bit in book club

that we kind of know that hey, telepaths not a natural thing.

Mm-hmm.

and They're becoming a battleground between the older races that we're

seeing hinted at, you know, that they were created to fight the shadows

and the shadows have found a way to weaponize them and, and use them.

And that's a very vulnerable population our human species with Earth.

And this isn't a plot line that's just gonna fizzle out like telepaths

are, are going to be a thing.

So they've really laid a lot of groundwork for this.

Mm-hmm.

So I had that, I had earth entanglements and then,

you know, we get so much mumbar history and that all weaves into.

Earth as well.

Just most of Earth doesn't know about it yet.

So uh, those were some big themes for me.

And then we also, you know, we have other season long themes that are not

as um, not episode to episode, not as defined, but we had, like, Franklin's

addiction was a big long plot.

Um, but it was kind of a long walk to, to borrow from Walkabout to get

to, you know, from his, original stems problem to his resolution.

And then it wasn't super satisfying for me.

So, yeah,

Yeah.

that's a little more of the personal side.

All right.

So we had a little bit of viewer mail.

Uh, We're recording on a very accelerated timeframe because

somebody's about to have a baby.

Yeah.

This is my fault.

It didn't mean it to point a finger.

I figured it was pretty obvious the way it was worked, which one of us was.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like any

Um,

we should probably hurry up actually.

Yeah, it might, maybe right now.

So we, we don't have a ton of feedback, but we did have a couple things we

got on the Discord over email that we wanna read about season three.

Or generic thoughts.

So shek on the discord, keep up the good work.

It's fun to listen to both of you analyze.

Season three was the, probably the best of B five at most good at Lee

and least bad amount of episodes.

That said four and five.

Still have some great episode moments and speeches to come.

A hundred percent agree.

We talked about this right off the top.

Season three is just fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And there are gonna be some good speeches to come.

I agree.

Can't wait.

Okay.

So next we had an email from super fan Ben.

He says, hello, who are you?

Congratulations on finishing season three.

It has been an absolute treat going through this season with

you as someone who binged the whole show as you all started.

It's now getting into that memory slash nostalgia zone of thinking

back on a show I watched a year ago.

As for season three, I think it's my favorite season.

Funny how many sci-fi shows need two seasons of building

up steam to get shagging.

That's the truth, isn't it?

Yeah

Well, we will never know what seasons four and five could have been

had they been left to JM S'S devices.

I can see the promise of season three and how great the show can be when it's

telling those great long-term stories.

I will agree with the sentiment of the hosts that I just love Marcus.

Yeah, we really do.

Mm-hmm.

He's great.

And I feel that he's a great addition to the show

though I do feel a little bit of character bloat as it goes on.

Okay.

It's hard to find the right balance between a show that has the community

level of, we've got a deep character roster and we can insert Leonard

and Garrett and any and at any time and the happy days of, we

forgot there is an older brother.

Oops.

That's accurate.

Yeah.

There are times I can really feel the show straining, give some of our B Team

characters things to do and it can be a really, a really a bummer because the

characters are so well written, for the most part, that when Veer linear Alan

or Tali, Anita gets some short shrift.

It can be a.

Why we get a boxing episode and not a day in the life of our three

aids is such a bummer for me.

That's a crime.

We should have had a day in the life of them.

Why NA hath just disappears and is uncommon and on for so long as a bummer.

And while I know he's a favorite punching bag, I do actually miss Keefer

because I appreciate having human characters doing their specific jobs.

With Sinclair, it made sense for him to lead a fighter wing, but when

it's, we need to have a small space battle, I guess the chief of police

is in charge now, feels crazy in a well defined world such as B five.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This isn't Trekk where we can just put anyone in a shuttle

and have a space battle.

It's supposed to be a structured, regimented world and having a

former capital ship commander jump in a fighter feels weird.

Yeah, I

agree.

In conclusion, I'm so very excited for season four and what, and

five, when we can look back and no longer ask, who are you, but.

What happened to her?

Sincerely, Ben

And we have one more letter from Francis loving the pod.

Thanks so much for sharing your creation with us.

I was listening to your episode's Shenanigans Potential, and you

were discussing a never shot scene where Lando approaches jaar with

his plan for Lord Re's betrayal.

You're also wondering the timeline of when Shakar knew the full plan.

On my rewatch, I noticed a bit of great acting done when

Veer approaches Ja car's door.

Ja car's face goes from recognition to disappointment to annoyance.

In less than a second has he waves veer into the room, my mind immediately

whispered, he knows Lake a Rom Mullin discovering a doctored hologram.

Anyways, hope you're all.

Well keep him coming and I'll keep listening, Francis Adventure Maximus,

this is a little signature there.

Yeah.

Maximus.

I like that.

That's cute.

So, yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you

nice.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I'm sorry we didn't have as much time to let everybody know this time.

Yeah.

I think we even called it, we probably called it on the air a little early that

we thought by this time this is airing, we would have already recorded this episode.

But it is what it is.

yeah.

All right.

weird.

We have one last bit here.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, for this episode, I, it's my favorite part of these season recap

episodes, and it's who is the one where we're gonna run down a list and say our

one thing for the season that falls into whatever we had just previously defined.

Yeah.

Some little categor.

And we start with who is the one best reoccurring charact.

There's a lot of contenders for this.

There are, yeah.

We get a

lot of repeats.

and so I'm gonna pick the one that won't be coming back, and that's Kash.

oh, okay.

Because this is really the season where Kas is like,

random bullshit, thought, speech, vomit actually makes sense.

And then you go back and you're like, wait, it actually

made sense the whole time.

And you're just like it's so good.

Yeah, Kasha had a real moment this season and he kept, even after

he was gone, he kept showing back up because there's that piece that we

kept hearing from, you know I picked a, another best recurring character

that I think is also not coming back.

I'm not a hundred percent sure you've seen it more recently than

I have, but I think Brother Theo's not coming back in season four.

I don't remember.

I could be wrong, so please don't hop all over me guys, if I

didn't remember this correctly.

But I feel like this might be it for Brother Theo and I, I, you know,

I wanted almost more brother Theo,

like we could have used him and, and uh, developed him a little bit more.

But he was such a fun actor.

Very interesting.

The monks themselves were such a cool idea to be on Babylon.

Five.

Mm-hmm.

So I give best recurring to Brother Theo.

I appreciate him.

All right.

What's up next?

Who is the one character with the most growth?

Yeah,

well um, in, in my opinion, most growth I have to give to Ja.

yeah.

for that transformation from who we saw him in convictions all

the way to I think shadow dancing is where we get a really good,

moment

with him.

the Rock right out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the rock cite out in, in the NTU shadow dancing, because I think

in the, in the rock right out, obviously we know what he's up to.

He is

not beating refa to death, but not, not beating refa to death.

yeah,

and then I think, I think we get him like leading some ships in to

help the battle and shadow dancing.

yeah.

I might be mixing up my episodes.

I'm sorry if I am, but

He definitely comes in to save the day in an darn heavy cruiser at

Exactly.

Yes.

So I feel like the man that he was in convictions versus the man he is

at the end very, very different and obviously, It was a little bit of a

drug trip, and it was a little bit of a touched by a Wark, but you know,

he's, he's had some major epiphanies,

For sure.

I knew you were gonna pick your car

Uhhuh.

and I agree with your car as a choice, but I wanted

to have another name ready.

I totally understand.

Yeah.

So I'm going with Sheridan.

Okay.

Tell us about Sheridan's growth.

He really, comes into his own this season.

You know, he comes in and he's fed up that he's just like this guy who's

commanded like deep space exploration vessels of like a hundred people.

And now he's running a city of a quarter million people.

And it's, they're very different jobs that require very different skill sets.

And the only reason he's here is because the president thinks he's a war hawk.

Yeah.

Ouch.

Right?

Yeah.

And he, he's not, he hates that, he hates that reputation.

And so knowing that makes it even worse, and he really starts

to deal with it in season two.

But season three is like, he steps into the role.

He becomes the leader of not just Babylon five, and not just the city,

but of the intergalactic alliance, you know, the army of light.

Mm-hmm.

And so that transformation really happens here.

Turns him into the person that he will be for seasons four and five.

And if you don't have the growth that he experiences in this season, he is

not the person he needs to be for later.

Yeah.

Totally.

Totally.

I buy that too.

All right.

Okay.

Who is the one best guest actor you had for this season?

I will wholly admit that I'm probably a little bit

inspired by the events of that Affor Men earlier mentioned show.

Huh.

And this is the teeniest spoiler.

And so I'm so sorry.

But obviously, you know, Brad Df was great

but I'm gonna give it to Major Barrett.

Oh,

The whole hearing, the whole story about why she like made a point of coming

on Babylon, five, reaching out to jms, being like, no sci-fi nerds are fa family.

Like, we should not be fighting.

There shouldn't be this stupid Star Trek Babylon five thing.

I'm gonna go on Babylon five because it will make the statement.

And then also just like the part she plays and the character is a lot of

fun and she does probably some of the best acting work in her career.

Um, You know, like.

I mean, look, swan's fun when she shows up, but as a character,

the acting's a bit rough, if I'm being needlessly mean about it.

But she really does a good job with the acting in this one, I felt.

Mm-hmm.

So that's my pick for best guest actor.

Yeah, I, I wrote down two here cuz I thought if Jafa picks

one of these, I'll pick the other.

And of course Major Barrett was one of my two

Yeah.

because I, you know, I, I want us to have stuff to talk about and not

just agree with each other all the time.

Yeah.

So I will pick Michael York for his appearance as King

Arthur cuz I love Michael York.

he does great.

He does great and he brings out such a.

Beautiful, fun side of Kar and we get to see him and Andreas just ham

it up and you know, destroy some bad guys and then drink and have fun.

Mm-hmm.

It was, it was very touching.

I really enjoyed that.

But yes, major Barrett was very important and I really appreciate her.

You know, not stoking the, the fires between fandoms that's very

mature and I like that about her.

But Michael York also gave us a wonderful performance.

And then of course my runner up was Brad Dif for passing through Yosemite

because that episode was great.

He was

it, he's great.

It's, it's a great episode.

I've already given the accolades like to that episode,

so I wasn't gonna do it twice.

Which I say right before, best one-off character, my Pickus King Arthur,

Yeah.

because Michael York was fucking great.

And the the character is also just so interesting.

Because like best guest actor and best one-off character are pretty close

Yeah.

when we're talking about topics.

And like I will say Major Barrett's character, not particularly

interesting, but great job with the acting and everything else around it.

But King Arthur as the character

is so fucking interesting to me.

Yeah.

But Michael York is also excellent in that role.

Honestly, I got a very similar vibe from a completely different and unrelated piece

of media recently from when Michael York, when Michael York was on that episode.

There is a game show on Dropout, which is the streaming service that.

Came from the ashes of college humor,

um, Called Game Changer.

And it is a game show where the game changes every time

Oh, oh, no.

and it's great.

And it's one of the best.

It's definitely the best game show I've probably ever watched.

It's excellent.

And part of the game is figuring out what's going on.

And there was an episode in season three where all of the people that were on

it were like, oh, of the college humor people, you are the best actors, right?

So do this scene for me, and they all do this scene.

And then he's all like, oh, well the twist this time is surprise.

Here's one Carlos Esposito, who's going to do all of these scenes you just did.

And then based off how much better he does than, than you, I'm

deducting points from each of you.

Oh, no.

And what you see happen very quickly are these

three people who are not.

I mean, one Carlos Pasito is an excellent actor, like a, a, a

real master of his craft, right?

And the College Schumer, people are goodish.

But they start kind of miserably, you know, like their first

takes before they see one Carlos Esposito do them are not great.

And over the progression of the episode, you see each of them

elevate their acting craft just from watching him do the same stuff as

them.

yeah.

And it felt a lot like, you know, you hear actors talk about how

a great actor can bring out the best acting ability of everyone around

them.

Mm-hmm.

And Andreas is a great actor,

Mm-hmm.

but working with Michael York,

the two of them playing off each other, like you said, it's that elevation.

It's that when you're working with someone who's that much.

Of a master of their craft that it just brings everyone around them up.

And it definitely felt like that in that episode where everyone's acting

just got better after that episode.

Mm-hmm.

And, and also with Marcus, he had a lot to do with Marcus in that episode too.

I, I think that you see it in both of them.

Jason Carter and Andreas.

So, yeah, I, I also couldn't help myself and best one off character I

just wrote down King Arthur uh, didn't

even, . I couldn't, couldn't come up with a better one cuz it is so memorable.

I remembered everything about that season.

And I love a, a nice historical legend tie-in to a sci-fi plot.

Like bringing that, that property, that intellectual thought that's been

around for, you know, hundreds of years and bringing it into our modern tales.

It's just fun.

I always

Mm-hmm.

. And it felt so much better than when it was Jack the Ripper in season two

Yeah, that didn't feel good.

That one felt kind of icky.

This one was a feel good.

Even though we did deal with like a heavy post-traumatic

stress disorder kind of topic.

We got there by kind of like swords and stuff and that was kind of fun.

So,

what was your one favorite bit this season?

My favorite bit was Marcus and Yvanova's breakfast

Oh

and all of the like little stuff around that with like the

flower going to the wrong plate.

All of the stuff around that, that whole comedy of errors

Mm-hmm.

over the course.

Was it one episode or two even?

I think it picks, I think it ends, one picks up as the

cold open and the next one.

That whole thing with Marcus and Ivan Alpha is my favorite bit of the season..

They're great.

That's a really fun bit.

I think that's probably, I don't know.

I'm, I'm not gonna say something else because it might be your bit.

I feel like

I was gonna say, you really scared me because my bit that was my favorite

the pillows.

the a Vva and the bed.

The Menari beds.

And the pillows.

And you started out with Marcus and Bon and I thought, oh no, in my bit.

I honestly, I was going to bring that up as the second

half and I saw the look on your face and I'm all like, oh, nope.

No, no.

Wait, wait, wait.

Nope.

Stop.

Okay.

I love a little bit of physical comedy sometimes, especially cuz

that was kind of like a heavy thing we were out there doing right.

We were scouting for shadows and it was very tense and you know,

we've got this bed that she winds up totally sliding off of and it's

a good little physical comedy ad.

Um, I feel like Bevel and five adds good comedy sometimes.

And that was my favorite, like physical moment.

And honestly, I haven't seen it.

But Ryan, because that was the episode with Yum.

Yum.

Ryan had mentioned that like he's got the wide screen DVDs and you see the

page lift the bed to like knock a on of a down out, just not a frame frame.

Oh, I need to see it.

Yeah.

It's just so good.

Yeah.

All right.

Do you have a best stepdad moment?

Yeah, I know that the, we, we came up with this idea out of, you know,

we had the best Sinclair dad moment,

Mm-hmm.

and then we had stepdad show up on the scene.

Um, And maybe he's not feeling his stepdaddy anymore.

but yeah, like he's, he's growing into something else.

Right.

But I think there's a good step-dad ish moment that comes up early in the season.

And that would be toward the end of the episode, passing through Gethsemane when

Brother Theo brings in the new monk,

who is the mind wiped criminal, who tortured and destroyed Brad Durif.

Um, who, you know, Sheridan had gotten to feel rather

protective of that little monk.

And

he has to deal with some big feelings really fast about this new monk.

And brother Theo sort of reminds him like, this is, this is what we do.

Like, you know, he is not the same person anymore.

He's forgiven, he's a monk now.

And, you know, kind of you're gonna have to deal with it.

Sheridan and I, I thought that was a big sort of moment, you know,

that stepdads might have where they have to confront something

and,

they don't like it, you know but they've they've gotta grow in a big way, and I

think he does in that, from that moment.

So

that would be my stepdad moment.

What about

I I don't have a stepdad moment,

uh, because I don't think he's stepdad anymore.

I think he's, I think he's dad now.

Okay.

But I also didn't pick a Best Dad moment.

Um, I picked a best widowed dad going on an awkward date moment,

Okay.

Yeah, there's that

uh, which is like when he's with Dalen and Deen's talking about her dad

not being able to pick her up anymore.

Yeah.

I think trying to keep in the spirit of it, I feel like that was as

close as we got where he, you know, it's kind of like the, the getting

out there again and the opening yourself up to someone and then having

someone open themself up in return.

Yeah.

So,

Yeah, that's, that's a thing.

That's a

definitely a a divorced or widowed dad kind of moment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have a one moment that you wished Sinclair was here?

It's not really a moment, but it was a whole subplot and it's walk about.

Okay.

Uh, because honestly, does walkabout even happen or does

Sinclair just be all like, Hey Franklin, knock off the fucking

stems before it's even a problem,

Yeah.

Yeah.

Does he have the hard conversation

He,

problem?

yes, cuz Sheridan will ignore a problem that's not the most

pressing problem in front of him.

If everything's running okay, then there must not be anything wrong with it.

That's Sheridan's way.

Um, But also Sinclair was a lot more personally involved with people,

Mm-hmm.

they definitely, the senior staff felt less like subordinates

to Sinclair than they do Sheridan.

And so I think he would've taken a more active personal.

Yeah.

Franklin's life and seen the problem and been all like, Hey,

you need to not get the fuck off.

And it would either not have gotten to the point where it was a problem

or it would've been handled much more succinctly and differently, rather

than Franklin feeling like he needs to fuck off for a month and a half.

Yeah, I think they tried to get some of that feeling with Garabaldi,

but Garabaldi is no Sinclair,

Yeah.

How about you?

What moment would you wish Sinclair was here for,

I,

moments he was

besides the moments he was just give me, gimme that

whole episode all over again.

no, I kind of wished that we had, we had Sinclair when we were going

through this stuff and severed.

Where are we getting the bombing of Mars?

Mm.

Because Gu, Baldi and Sinclair seem to have a little bit more

personal historical connection to Mars

Yeah.

than Sheridan.

I think we get Sheridan mentioning like some friends quotation marks

cuz we made some jokes about what kind of friends as were on Mars.

But it's not as personal as we know.

Garabaldi and Sinclair have been there and I believe it was where they met.

Yeah.

and you know, we we even have the story about them being like on the

surface of Mars and seeing the shadow ship

Mm-hmm.

The whole

rising there.

So I feel like that the bombing of Mars plot might have felt a little more

personal if we had Sinclair in his touch.

There

Mm-hmm.

again, they tried to give it to us through Garabaldi and

Garabaldi worrying about his.

Ex-girlfriend there or whatever.

But,

um, yeah, I just, I just wanted Sinclair for that.

Maybe more of emotional impact.

Good call.

All right.

Well, that's season three.

We made it.

We made it.

We'll be back next week with Book Club.

Yeah.

I haven't finished it yet,

I'm not done yet, but I will be before we get there.

I, I have already read more of this one than I did last one, and

I don't want to be the guy who's got a book club segment on his podcast,

and he's never finished the fucking book, so I'm gonna really try.

Yeah.

Well, this one's All about baby Buster so far,

yes.

I, I, he is uh, I'm past that part actually.

Yeah.

He's not a baby anymore, but I, I feel.

You know, Buster's what in the show, like in his seventies is . What we calculated.

Yeah.

He's, he is older than, Well, I, I mean, he's older than

Walter Connick, but not by much.

I think is what we came out to.

Uh, Ster is like, I want to say, in his late teens, possibly early

twenties where I'm at right now.

Yeah.

I think we're about at the same spot then.

Okay.

Yeah.

But

that's still a baby.

We're in

our, we're in our, late thirties now.

We can call them babies.

So, yeah, so we'll be talking about that next week, and

then we're gonna go on a break and then we'll be back with season four,

Yeah.

I'm excited.

we're gonna get some really exciting episodes.

Thank you to Jeremy Siegel, who still hasn't accepted my friend request on

Facebook.

Whoa.

I think you're being snubbed.

A little bit.

Feels like it.

He even liked something the other day and I had to check with Ben

to see if that was the episode.

I called him out on the air about it and it wasn't.

So,

yeah.

nah, I don't, I think that one just is either hit this week or next week.

It's fine, Jeremy.

Really, it's just, it's funny to me at this point.

Uh, But thank you for our lovely theme music.

Really do appreciate you a great deal.

Uh, You can find more of Jeremy's work@jeremyc4.bank.com and on Spotify

as nuclear Jaguar and listen to those monthly album challenges.

They're

Yeah.

At this point, I think he has three out.

I think we've got January, February, and March

Nice.

Yeah.

And thank you to Angry Duck time machine on Instagram for our podcast artwork.

Thank you to Yum, yum podcast, Ryan and Rachel, and then Scott

from Gray 17 for joining us This.

Yeah.

It was

was a lot of fun and we already talked a bit about where, I

think we've already got an episode picked out for Scott to come back.

So

we

Ben's gonna be joining us at, in a couple episodes into season four.

Yum, yum.

Or we'd love to have you guys back.

That was excellent.

Any of our fellow League of Nonaligned podcasts, if you've listened to

this podcast and you want to be on ours, we'd love to have you,

Mm-hmm.

Come and talk about your show for a bit and just, you

know, the B five community in general, we'd love to hear it.

Yeah.

all of our fans, the people who listen to this podcast every

week, the people who interact on our discord and talk shit about

Picard season three with me.

I appreciate the shit outta all of you.

Thank you so much for making us a part of your day.

It's a crazy thing to think about.

It's very surreal sometimes.

So we really appreciate the community.

Thank you so much.

You know, recommend us to a friend if you think they wanna listen to us.

Blab on about Babylon five like you do.

You know, some reviews on your favorite pod catcher,

you know, all that stuff.

It makes the world of difference to us.

Thank you

does.

of it.

Yeah.

And last but not least, thank you to Aaron for editing this episode,

cuz it's gonna be a little tough in

spots.

we said our password out loud.

It's a problem.

Hopefully that's not in the final cut.

Thanks.

All right, so we'll be back with book club and then season four of Babylon.

Five.

Couple weeks after that.

Yeah.

Yep.

care.

Internet.

Have a good one.