{"id":6992,"date":"2018-09-27T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2018-09-27T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=6992"},"modified":"2018-09-20T17:13:57","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T00:13:57","slug":"mark-watches-babylon-5-s01e05-the-parliament-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2018\/09\/mark-watches-babylon-5-s01e05-the-parliament-of-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Babylon 5’: S01E05 – The Parliament of Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifth episode of the first season of Babylon 5<\/i>, Sinclair entertains an old flame; G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar entertains a possible assassin. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Babylon 5<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clear parallel here in that the pasts of Sinclair and G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar come back to haunt them. But that similarity quickly deviates in tone and execution, and instead, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Parliament of Dreams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d does some unexpected things. LET\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TALK.<\/p>\n

Catherine<\/b><\/p>\n

Look, I felt like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d seen enough stories like this to know where this episode was going. To the credit of the actors involved, the chemistry between Sinclair and Catherine was undeniable. And I loved how forward<\/i> they were about their attraction to one another! So much of this relationship is told to us through dialogue and then through some very physical acting. The rest is left up to the audience, and I bought it. These two had clearly known one another for a long, long time, and their re-appearance in one another\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives had unearthed a bit of a mess. Thus, I figured these two would court one another, wish that they could be in their lives again, and then, at the end of the episode, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d part. They can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be together! It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s too hard! Their jobs make it too difficult! Hell, even Caroline succumbed to that problem. Clearly, this was about to happen!<\/p>\n

Which is why I was so surprised at the end of this that Catherine and Sinclair decided to actually<\/i> see one another. It remains to be seen if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll actually show up in future episodes, but that intent is here. Catherine and Sinclair have genuinely decided to give this relationship a good try instead of disappearing on the other one this time around. I WAS SHOCKED, OKAY. And I like Catherine, so this was a neat twist on my expectations. And actual serialized romance? YES.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar<\/b><\/p>\n

G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s past, however, is a lot more ambiguous. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a strange choice for the show because we already don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a whole lot about G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar, and this episode hints at a past through Du\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Rog that it then never gives us. I can accept that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both political rivals, but what exactly<\/i> did G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar do to warrant an assassination contract being taken out on him? Like the issue of contracted slavery on the Centauri world, it seems that contracted assassination is just par for the course with the Narn. But how does this connect with the negotiations that G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar is part of? What information did he ultimately not care about if it got released? I feel like that sort of specificity would have given this story the extra punch it needed.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As it stands, G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plot veers between humor due to his paranoia and an attempt to show us how loyal Na\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Toth is. (AND I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THEIR FATHER.) The latter works better than the former, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s partially due to the problem I mentioned just a bit ago: I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know enough about G\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Kar or Narn society\/culture to appreciate what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on here. This plot might have been more effective later in the season, perhaps, when I had a better understanding of this stuff.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Celebration<\/b><\/p>\n

However, there could<\/i> have been an easy way to solve that issue: have the Narn display one of their religious ceremonies during the celebration week! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little to no plot in these sequences, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m perfectly fine with that. Rather, these scenes give us a slice of society. We learn more about the joy and decadence of the Centauri once we see Londo and Vir celebrate… well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure who the Xon were. They got wiped out, right? Which feels very in-line with the sort of dominance we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen from the Centauri. The Minbari ceremony, on the other hand, was intricately concerned with life and death. The motif of reincarnation and rebirth appears again, and we also get a sense for how sensual and emotional the Minbari are. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an unspoken brilliance to that scene. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all performed by people who used<\/i> to be at war with Earth. Now, years later, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re able to share this cultural tradition in a space meant for building peace. That<\/i> is a fantastic way to communicate a change without saying it directly. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a nice touch, one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only made better when Sinclair comes up with a beautiful idea to showcase Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s religious diversity. That sort of cultural exchange speaks loudly about how everything has changed between these two species.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Parliament of Dreams\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"