President Clark's former personal physician comes to Babylon 5 with Earth Special Intelligence hot on his heels. Meanwhile, Kosh agrees to teach Sheridan a valuable lesson.
(Originally aired on March 1, 1995)
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Menachem Binetski
| Physician, heal thyself |
FRANKLIN: Michael, you ever considered climbing out of the barracks some time and looking around at the world?
GARIBALDI: Yeah, I will, when people stop shooting at me. |
GARIBALDI: Stephen, the last time you vouched for a doctor friend of yours, we had three dead bodies, half the station was trashed, an Ikarran war machine was burning through decks and shooting at everything. |
FRANKLIN: I think we lost interest in the future when all the things we were told were coming finally got here. It wasn't what we thought it was goingto be. It's like when you keep bugging your folks for that one special toy for Christmas, and when you finally get it, it's not as great as the vids made it look. |
GUEST STARS
Bernie Casey - Derek Cranston
Jeff Conaway - Zach Allan
Wanda De Jesus - Sarah
Tony Steedman - Doctor Everett Jacobs
Richard Moll - Max
ANALYSIS
Ever since the first time a bonehead Commodore stepped onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, SF television has been rife with hard-assed, incompetent or outright malicious specimens of establishment mentality. Derek Cranston embodies a long-standing, if not especially laudable, tradition.
Characters like Cranston serve an important function. They stand in contrast and opposition to the main characters' better natures and impulses. They are the funhouse mirrors in which Our Heroes' best qualities become distorted and reflected.
That's the nature of episodic television. The main characters - even when they have as many personal problems as the <i>B5</i> crew - are paragons, exemplars, and at their very worst, cautionary tales. The people who pass through their lives illuminate the main characters' personalities - good, bad and ugly.
The easiest way to comment on a character is by introducing their opposite. In the case of 'Hunter, Prey,' this means that Cranston's membership in an intelligence agency that reports directly to President Clark stands in direct contrast to Sheridan's growing commitment to stand against the darkness.
COMING UP NEXT
'There All the Honor Lies'
Sheridan - framed?
Who said Minbari don't lie?
Beauty in the dark
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