Group Watch: Divided Loyalties

[SmileOfTheShadow]

A great one here. The triumphant return of Lyta, which makes me happy because I think Patricia is hotter than Andrea...I mean, uh..a better actress. This tv show's all about being deep, not shallow. Yeah. Ahem. Anyway, Lyta warns everyone that there's a spy aboard. We learn:

1. Ivanova is a latent telepath! Which..never gets developed.

2. Talia is a psi-corps plant sent to spy on our friends. It's really amusing watching her be evil at the end.

JMS does a really good job in this episode of keeping the heat off of Talia, midirecting us to think that Ivanova is the plant the entire time, that misdirection probably carried over from the original first officer actually being the intended plant. My girlfriend was completely convinced that it was Ivanova almost the entire way through. Kudos for the writing there. Many "mystery" episodes of shows end up very obvious, and so I'm glad this one works well.

The problem I have with this is wouldn't Ironheart have figured out something about her being a plant and not being the real talia if he was as powerful as he appeared and not given her the "gift"? And second, if she was evil Talia now, with the gift, why wouldn't she have just kicked some ass of our heroes right then?

Delenn/Sheridan moments are nice in this one. I really love the buildup of this relationship, as I've already mentioned.

Your turn

[Jan]

1. Ivanova is a latent telepath! Which..never gets developed.

Well, Sheridan did have her meet with Bester to see if he'd scan her further down the road. I think it would've been more important once the telepath colony came to B5.

The problem I have with this is wouldn't Ironheart have figured out something about her being a plant and not being the real talia if he was as powerful as he appeared and not given her the "gift"? And second, if she was evil Talia now, with the gift, why wouldn't she have just kicked some ass of our heroes right then?

In cases of dissociative personality disorder, personalities have different talents and abilities from each other. I don't think that Jason would have found the 'sleeper' personality unless he knew to look for it. Same with the 'sleeper' Talia not being able to use the gift that Jason gave to the original personality, although the sleeper actually was aware of original Talia. Could be that she hadn't been able to develop it very far yet.

Jan

[Andrew_Swallow]

I suspect that the embedded personality is a mundane. It would have access to Talia's powers but would not think to use them.

Lyta was not looking for a new personality that could only be implanted into a telepath.

[BabylonRebel]

Perhaps sometime - offscreen - after 'Mind War' Talia went back to Earth on business when the Psi Corps implanted the secondary personality.

[Macbeth]

More broken record time here on B5 groundbreaking coolness.

This was a few months after the first big lesbian kiss ever shown on tv (Roseanne) - although it was not a romantic situation, nor a "relationship" in that show. Two years before the first openly gay main character on a show (Ellen). This was an adult homosexual relationship between 2 primary characters on a mainstream show.

This simply was not done on TV!!

Once again

Wow!

[Garibaldi's Hair]

This was a few months after the first big lesbian kiss ever shown on American tv (Roseanne) - although it was not a romantic situation, nor a "relationship" in that show. Two years before the first openly gay main character on a American show (Ellen). This was an adult homosexual relationship between 2 primary characters on a mainstream show.

This simply was not done on American TV!!

Corrected that for you ...

[RMcD]

And it was handled so differently from those other examples.. it wasn't a big deal, it wasn't in your face, it wasn't even a plot point. It was just something that happened between those two characters in the course of the episode, practically blink and you miss it (and I think I did the first couple of times I saw it).

[Jan]

Possibly my favorite bit of foreshadowing ever is in this episode and I'll never know if it was intentional. In the scene where we see Talia alone in bed, the camera starts on a photo or painting of an eclipse and then tilts down to Talia as if to tell us that this Talia will be overshadowed by the sleeper personality.

I do love this show.

Jan

[moreorless]

More broken record time here on B5 groundbreaking coolness.

This was a few months after the first big lesbian kiss ever shown on tv (Roseanne) - although it was not a romantic situation, nor a "relationship" in that show. Two years before the first openly gay main character on a show (Ellen). This was an adult homosexual relationship between 2 primary characters on a mainstream show.

This simply was not done on TV!!

Once again

Wow!

That does make me wonder how far JMS would have tried to push it had Andrea Thompson not left, to try for a long term homosexual relationship on TV at that time would have been very risky in terms of the shows long term future.

Well, Sheridan did have her meet with Bester to see if he'd scan her further down the road. I think it would've been more important once the telepath colony came to B5.

Might just be me but I viewed Ivanova trying to kill Bester in cold blood as a bit of a foreshadowing of the direction her character went so it does have some importance.

One thing I'd like to have seen in this episode was a bit of a moral debate on activating the sleeper in the first place as you are effectly killing someone who's not knowingly done anything wrong.

[SmileOfTheShadow]

That does make me wonder how far JMS would have tried to push it had Andrea Thompson not left, to try for a long term homosexual relationship on TV at that time would have been very risky in terms of the shows long term future.

Well, JMS is very stubborn...so I'd figure the harder the network execs pushed to get rid of it, the more he'd try to push the envelope within whatever guidelines they set in a clever way.

One thing I'd like to have seen in this episode was a bit of a moral debate on activating the sleeper in the first place as you are effectly killing someone who's not knowingly done anything wrong.

I think about this every time I watch this episode as well. Poor real Talia! But they sort of address it. Talia's pretty much already dead, it seems, and this new personality is a front. They already went into her head and messed with her, and that was the moment the REAL Talia ceased to exist. Creepy.

[RMcD]

Another little twist in this episode. The sleeper personality's codename is Control. Control was the one advising Abel Horn via Bureau 13 in Spider in the Web. In that episode, Control advised killing Talia after she witnessed the murder of Taro Isogi.

But since Control is Talia's second personality, it seems Control was in effect willing to commit suicide to protect Horn's mission..

[SmileOfTheShadow]

Another little twist in this episode. The sleeper personality's codename is Control. Control was the one advising Abel Horn via Bureau 13 in Spider in the Web. In that episode, Control advised killing Talia after she witnessed the murder of Taro Isogi.

But since Control is Talia's second personality, it seems Control was in effect willing to commit suicide to protect Horn's mission..

Wow, I would have never caught that. Thanks RMcD. That really makes the plot a lot deeper than I imagined it was. Even the non-JMS eps tie into the arc I guess.

[Hal_10000]

Suspense

I've now watched this episode three or four times. And each time, even though i KNOW who the traitor is, I find myself getting keyed up and tense. It's masterful writing and direction that just build a great suspense story.

It also brought back the lovely Pat Tallman, who I always prefered. No insult to Andrea Thompson, who was fine.

[Morden]

I agree with everything said so far, but we should not forget to mention Garibaldis big "BUH! Sorry, couldn't help myself!"-moment... so funny!

[Macbeth]

Corrected that for you ...

Fair enough,

BUT

B5 was made in California, by Warner Brothers for UPN and relied solely on American ratings for success. International markets were a bonus and in no way entered the thinking as to what would be acceptable or challenging to American television audiences and American sponsors, so your correction is a distinction without a difference.

I say this coming fromn one of those irrelevant markets

Mac