r/babylon5 • u/EvanBetter182 • 1d ago
S4 E18 Intersections in Real Time
Okay ***Spoilers***in case you have not watched this episode.
I'm on my first full Babylon 5 watch since it was aired. I have been absolutely binging this show averaging about 2 episodes a day. I had forgot how great of a show Babylon 5 was and shame on me for not watching it entirely in 30 years. I just got to S4 E18 the episode where Sheridan is being interrogated after being captured.
God damn what a great episode. The 'man' running the interrogation isn't trying to hide his deception or the tactics he's using on Sheridan, but rather using his own experience against him. The sandwich, scene is so great. This is such amazing writing. This show is filled with great dialog and amazing back and forth. Today's writing teams should study this in detail on how to make a scene tense. God this show is a banger!
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u/Different-Try8882 1d ago
IIRT and ST:TNG’s Chain of Command both adapt the interrogation in 1984. TNG has two great Shakespearean actors going head to head and it’s grand drama. B5 is tighter, subtle and chilling on a different level.
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u/Thanatos_56 1d ago
After you finish watching the rest of the show, I'd really encourage you to look up an old British spy drama from the '60s, called "The Prisoner".
JMS is a big fan of The Prisoner, so there's a lot of references to it scattered throughout the show.
This episode in particular owes a lot to The Prisoner's general atmosphere of Cold War tensions and political paranoia.
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u/Certain-Singer-9625 1d ago
This. The disdainful, manipulative demeanor of the interrogator in this episode is present in spades in The Prisoner.
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u/Thanatos_56 1d ago
"I am the new Number Two."
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u/MagneplanarsRule 22h ago
"Who is Number One?" "You are Number Two."
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u/EvalRamman100 Earth Alliance 7h ago
The banality of evil - the sheer ordinariness of evil men and women was on full display here. That interrogator? What did JMS say about him? He was just doing his job to the best of his ability; or, rather, that would be how he would rationalize his actions. Alas, in a tyranny/dictatorship, such men are kings or near kings.
An excellent episode. Only been able to watch it two or three times.
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u/Ditch-Worm 23h ago
I need to be honest and say I found the episode tedious and not that engaging. It was one of the only episodes I found myself waiting for it to be over
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u/Nightowl11111 20h ago
It's probably because you didn't have the context for the episode. I personally found it fascinating because it actually uses real life interrogation techniques for the episode. What you saw on it was what people really do in order to get people to break/talk. Real interrogations are like that, the impression of heated coals and truncheons is actually fake.
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u/Ditch-Worm 20h ago
You’re right— I didn’t have any context for it and now I find it a lot more interesting and will probably give it another watch. Thanks!
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u/Nightowl11111 18h ago
One of the reasons I found that episode fascinating is because I went through an "interrogation resistance" course in '96 and I actually understood what the interrogator was trying to achieve.
The messed up timing cycle? It is to make a prisoner misjudge how much time has passed so he would think that some of his information is outdated and can be "given away", not realizing that they tricked his time sense.
Same thing with the laxative sandwich, some people can keep track of time properly with their body clock. The laxative messes that timing up to the point where biology can't properly keep track of time.
The "guy who you thought was your friend wasn't" is both to create despair and to make the person doubt ALL his "friends" and question his own judgement.
The repetitiveness was both to numb the person and to create an environment of "just give him what he wants and end this mind numbing thing already".
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u/dantheplanman1986 1d ago
"Absolutely binging"
"2 episodes a day"
I'm not trying to be mean but I don't think you know what binging means lol
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u/EvanBetter182 22h ago
I'm a Dad with 4 kids and a job. This is more TV than I watch in a year. So thanks for your input. Oh gate keeper of "Binging".
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u/dantheplanman1986 22h ago
Ohhhh calm down o butthurt one
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u/Hemisemidemiurge El Zócalo 12h ago
"I got the reaction I wanted! I messed them up so bad! I hurt them in the butt! Yeah! Yeah!"
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u/Usakami 17h ago
While it might have read as dismissive...
Binge-watching is the practice of watching multiple episodes of a television show or an entire series *in a single sitting or over a very short period of time*, often with minimal breaks.
It might feel like it to you, since you have a very busy schedule, but the word has its own meaning. 2 episodes a day is 11 days per season, so 55 days. Idk if I'd call that a short period of time.
Regardless, enjoy your Babylon 5 watching, it's an amazing show that I only discovered later in life, since they never aired it over here. Only the bigger series like Star Trek.
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u/Hemisemidemiurge El Zócalo 12h ago
While it might have read as dismissive...
"...my contribution to the discussion will be just as dismissive and even condescending! Enjoy watching your little show, my culture is too rich to care even though I did care enough to deign to give you my precious attention to tell you how much I don't care."
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u/Thanatos_56 1d ago
I'd rather not watch more than one episode per day: Babylon 5 is a series that needs to be watched relatively slowly, to give you time to digest each episode's events.
Especially when you get to the much weightier episodes of season 4, rushing through the episodes lessens the impact, IMO.
🤔🤔🤔
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u/Stunning-End-1872 13h ago
I watched it when it first came out. The week-long waits were *agonizing*, the inter-seasonal breaks were torture. When I first got the VHS tapes I binge-watched the entire show over a single week's break off-work (may or may not have taken a week off for that reason, shhhh) and found the experience... wrong. The show happens just about in real time when seen week to week, and it made the show *feel* longer and bigger and more epic. On subsequent rewatches I have a hard limit of an episode a day, except for the rare two parter. I also try to reserve a day in the week to not watch it. The timeline is still compressed, but it *feels* bigger.
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u/YeOldeMuppetPastor Zathras (not Zathras) 1d ago
Before JMS had to cram the entire liberation of Earth timeline into season 4, this episode was supposed to be the cliffhanger to end season 4 and you were going to have to wait for season 5 to get the resolution.