RETROSPECULATIVE TV: Babylon 5: “The Fall of Night” (Season 2, Episode 22)

Following the Cylon sneak attack that destroyed their homeworld, the last battlestar, Galactica, leads a lonely quest to…oh, wait, I meant “Centauri” and not Cylon. And it’s a Narn heavy cruiser, not the other thing. Sorry.

Anyway, when the war ended, there was one Narn warship unaccounted for. It shows up at B5, exhibiting *really* bad timing.

Y’see, the Centauri have begin attacking Drazi and Pak’ma’ra worlds, claiming they’re ‘stabilizing the region’ and ‘establishing a presence’ and ‘establishing a buffer zone.’ This brings Sheridan and Londo into direct conflict, particularly when Sheridan challenges Londo to show him where, on the map, this is gonna’ stop. Londo looks sad for a moment, then leaves.

Earthgov has sent out a Mr. Lantz (Played by “Father” from Beauty and the Beast, also known as Comissioner Simmonds from Space: 1999) from the Ministry of Peace and a Mr. Welles from the Nightwatch to investigate the situation. Lantz is a nice guy, and immediately hits it off with Ivonova. Welles seems like a nice guy, but immediately manages to offend Ivonova by offering to help her career advancement if she’ll become an informant for him. It’s interesting to me that *both* of them are interested in her, and nobody else.

Lantz interviews all the ambassadors on the station, excepting G’kar whom he refuses to talk to. Welles holds Nightwatch meetings, and cajoles Zack into confirming information about a shopkeeper on the Zocalo who complains about import regulations. Lantz later reveals that the purpose of his trip was to sign a “Nonaggression pact” between Earth and the Centauri. “There will be peace in our time,” he says, echoing Neville Chamberlain, and outing himself as a well-meaning fool in the process.

It’s right about now that the Narn ship shows up. Sheridan offers them protection, but Tech 2 in C&C is in night watch, and she informs Welles, who informs Londo, who informs Centauri Prime, and then calls Sheridan to yell at him. Realizing a Centauri warship is on the way, they scramble fighters and arm weapons in order to protect the Narn as they make a run for the jump gate. The Centauri open fire on the Narn, the fighters, and the station, but the Narn get away and B5’s new defenses (from “Gropos” 12 episodes back) take out the Centauri warship.

Zeta Squadron escorts the Narn through hyperspace, but Keffer goes off to look for a shadow ship. He finds it, and it kills him. He’s dead. Two principle cast members gone in four episodes, three over the course of a season. Yowza!

Back on the station, Welles and Lantz are furious with Sheridan, though they can’t actually *do* anything to him, as he acted under the rules, inconvenient as they may be. He’s given a presidential order to give a public apology in the Zen Garden, and if he refuses he’ll be removed from command. Grudgingly, he agrees. He takes the core shuttle to the garden. The core shuttle is the one that actually runs through the axis of the station. Some Centauri - agents? Terrorists? Just angry civlians? - blow up the shuttle, but Sheridan sees the bomb, and dives out moments before it goes off. As he falls slowly, Ivonova watches from the deck a thousand feet below and explains: “Right now he’s basically weightless, but the ground is moving at sixty miles an hour, and when he hits it…”

Realizing that if Sheridan dies, their hope in the coming war dies as well, Kosh finally reveals himself in order to save him. He turns out to be…well, just watch it and see:

Wow!

Two years leading up to that! Wow!

Afterwards, Londo reveals he saw nothing, whereas everyone else saw an angel in the guise of their own species. This means something, but it’s never entirely clear what. Sheridan - still kinda’ buzzed from it all - speculates that the Vorlons have been visiting and manipulating the younger races forever, which is why Kosh has occasionally said he’d be “Recognized by everyone” if he went out publicly. Delenn confirms this. In the Zocalo, Zack sees the shopkeeper arrested, and a sign placed on his store that says “Closed by the Nightwatch on charges of Sedition.”

Ivonova lights Hanukah candles and her voiceover tells us that “The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace, but by the end of 2259 we knew that it had failed. But it became something more: our best hope for victory. Because sometimes ‘peace’ is just another