Babylon 5: S04E18: Intersections in Real Time
Hmmmm. I can’t think of much to say about this episode, especially after the last. It reminds me of the ISN episode, the one where you kept telling the show to ‘Get on with it!’ Mathew wrote loads of stuff about this episode in his review in the Lurkers Guide, and Allan Jenoff positively enthused about it giving a rating of 10 out of 10 (???!!!). It’s very memorable and very well done. I just can’t get over the phrase in my head…. “get on with it!”
At the end of the day Sheridan got interrogated. There, that’s it. You might as well move on to the review of the next episode now, cos that’s just about all there is to say about this one! No sex, no violence, well, no thumping and kicking violence anyway. Even the story-line, usually so strong, was a little repetitive.
Basically, Sheridan got interrogated (yes I know I’ve already said that) by an interrogator determined to make him denounce his activities against his home planet and confess to being manipulated by aliens. The interrogator went to great pains to break Sheridans will and make him sign a confession. Eventually, Sheridan would read out his confession on public television to give it credibility. Presumably President Clark would then expect Sheridans army to crumble.
Not so. Sheridan, the good soldier that he is, simple resisted all attempts to poison his mind (and body) and give in. The interrogator tried many tricks in terms of words and actions to break Sheridan’s spirit but you just knew that he wouldn’t give in – no matter what. After only a few minutes I believed that the attempts to break Sheridan were doomed and that he would probably change the mind of the interrogator in some way.
If there was a flaw to the episode it was probably that the interrogator (I’m sick of saying interrogator – lets call him… erm… dickhead), the dickhead should have been meaner, more menacing, instead he reminded me of my dad – ‘If you don’t eat your carrots, you can’t have any biscuits’. The dickhead should have given Sheridan a couple of smacks in the chops, wipe that sanctimonious smile from his face. A couple of kicks in the groin would have been nice too. Even better would have been a game of Russian Roulette with his father or, god forbid, calling Delenn an ‘old slapper’!
The only redeeming feature of this episode was that, as the interrogation drew to a climax, 
Sheridan was forced to make a decision on confession or being dispatched to the dreaded ‘Room 17’, where we (and Sheridan) were led to believe that one would die a painful and lingering death.
In the end Sheridan chose the painful and lingering death only to find that Room 17 was the whole interrogation process starting again from scratch, same questions, same actions, same threats but a different dickhead.
Nice touch that. I hope though, that the next episode has some more tall blondes, battles between exotic spaceships and maybe the odd punch up, hell anything gratuitous would be nice. This episode was far to intellectually stimulating for this Sad Geezer to appreciate.
Addendum: Hmmm… I’ve now seen this episode a few times and am ashamed to say, it gets better every time I see it. I guess it may grow on you.
I still godda still rate this an impatient-for-some 29.392 out of 10.
What did you think?
The “Intersections in Real Time” episode review is © 1999 – 2001 Tony Fawl and not for reproduction without the authors express permission
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