Captain Sheridan assumes command of Babylon 5. Lennier reveals why the Minbari surrendered during the Battle of the Line. A renegade Minbari war cruiser threatens the station. The still-comatose Garibaldi misses all the excitement.

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
|Directed by Janet Greek

He Gave Ivanova the Best Lines

IVANOVA: I can only conclude that I am paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate.

SHERIDAN: What's our status?    More Stories Space Powers Babylon 5 Star's Congressional Bid Babylon 5 - 'Chrysalis' Babylon 5 - 'Quality of Mercy' Babylon 5 - 'Babylon Squared'    Related Links SPACE.com's television coverage Babylon 5 The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5 IVANOVA: Chief of Security's in critical condition in Medlab. He thinks there'sa conspiracy concerning the President's death. Ambassador G'Kar has mysteriously vanished. After two years we still don't know what Ambassador Kosh looks like inside his encounter suit. And Ambassador Delenn is in a cocoon. SHERIDAN: A cocoon? As in a moth or a butterfly? IVANOVA: Yes, sir. About yea high.

IVANOVA: Then I'll say a prayer for him tonight. FRANKLIN: He's agnostic. IVANOVA: Then I'll say half a prayer.

GUEST STARS

Richard Grove - Kalain
Robin Sachs - Hedronn
Robert Foxworth - General Hague

WATCH OUT FOR

* In addition to reprising the role of Hedronn in "All Alone in the Night", Robin Sachs will return to Babylon 5 as two separate Narn characters (Na'Kal and Na'Tok) and a second Minbari (Coplan in the TV movie "In the Beginning").

ANALYSIS

The theme of rebirth -- ceremonial, symbolic and literal -- echoes throughout the Babylon 5 saga.

Specifically, two characters spend "Points of Departure" in states of flux. Garibaldi literally hangs between life and death while Delenn spends the episode in transition between her original and hybrid states. Their rebirths will have to wait until the next episode.

Although it happens off-camera, Sinclair's reassignment offers him a rebirth of sorts. His ambassadorial post on Minbar brings him closer to the destiny we've been told awaits him. For Sinclair, this is just the latest in a series of rebirths that began on the Line and culminates in the episode "War Without End II".

Given what we learn of the Minbari belief system in this episode, death offers the crew of the Trigati their only hope of rebirth. As exiles, they are cut off from their people. By dying, the ensure that their souls will be reborn in the next generation of Minbari

[As an aside, the Trigati also serves a second, equally significant, symbolic function. The renegade ship and crew that chooses exile over obedience to an illegal -- or at the very least unconscionable -- order foreshadows Sheridan's decision to break off ties with Earth rather than submit to President Clark's tyrannical authority.

Thus, the introduction of the relatively sympathetic fanatics of the Trigati predispose viewers to accept the station's secession in "Severed Dreams".]

Delenn grows some hair,
G'Kar has "Revelations",
things falling apart.