Listen to Episode 10

Babylon 5 Season 3 Episode 10: Severed Dreams

This Week’s Guest

Michael Vincent Bramley Michael Vincent Bramley

Michael Vincent Bramley, known as MVB around the internets, is a graphic and comic artist who has created many podcast images for the Gamefully Unemployed and Small Beans networks. You can see his work at mvbramley.art, or by following him on Instagram

Naming Things Matters

I liked in this episode that the Clark administration is clearly overstepping their bounds. The first thing we hear is that the Earth ship chasing the Agamemnon is the “Clarkston”. Clark is clearly abandoning tradition to plaster his name over everything, like a certain Current American President. It’s a clear signal to the degree of authoritarianism that has taken Earth’s government.

Both races that have clearly aligned with the Shadows, the Humans and the Centauri, are the ones that have a single political figure take over in an authoritarian manner. Mimbari have their own caste struggles, but not a single figure that represents their brand of fascism like Clark and Cartagia.

The more I see B5 through fresh eyes, the more I see both its strengths and weaknesses. Its strength is clearly the long-running story which allows deep character development and political plots. The main conflicts always revolve around deep connections between the main characters and their shared history. It makes this experiment in dropping people in the middle of the series very challenging. We had quite a few guests in the first two seasons say they plan on watching more B5. That has dried up for the last few guests.

A major part of that is the show’s premise. Treating the show like one long arc will inevitably alienate new viewers. I still highly enjoy the part of the show where Dre and I get to clarify the story for guests, but by the middle of Season 3 it’s gotten extremely knotty to explain what the hell is going on.

The thing that always comes through is the theme of the show. On any B5 episode not entitled “TKO” or “Grey 17 is Missing”, JMS is extremely good at exploring a theme. “The Fall of Night” was a good one with everything revolving around gifts and holiday traditions without being overbearing.

Mike’s Image Picks

Londo realizes he might have trouble in customs here on out.

Well, well, well... Oh shit, you're the fuzz now?

Rangers get targeted by non-aligned worlds as they start to attack each other.

Trouble... Oh Trouble Oh shit, the non-aligned worlds are getting aggressive

Major Ryan is out of his league, but oddly more fit for this job.

Best Brows in the Business Oh shit, I'm the captain now?

ISN gets real for approximately 30 seconds before getting overrun by Clark’s forces.

Truth bomb! Oh shit, we've been propaganda the whole time!

Sheridan transforms into a twinkling being of light to deliver some very serious messages to the station.

Boo! Oh shit, I'm non-corporeal!

Delann force of wills this dude into stepping.

Step aside, pleeb! Oh shit, she's serious!

Delann breaks the council and their precious ritual stick.

She's so proud of that take Oh shit, I broke it!

The council realizes their days of hazing the worker caste with paddles are gone.

She's so proud of that take Oh shit, not the jizz biscuit!

What Did We Learn?

Never trust a Mike or a Michael, Dre.

Next Episode

For the next full episode, we cover Babylon 5: Season 3 Episodes 16 and 17 “War Without End” with special guest Karl Wolf. Coming to you Sunday, December 14th.

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Cheers, all!