The Name of the Place is Babylon 5: War Without End (Part One)


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	Babylon 5 - 'War Without End (Part One)' By Tom Janulewicz The One posted: 11:43 am ET 27 December 2000

Sinclair returns to Babylon 5 to mastermind a heist

Sinclair returns to Babylon 5 to mastermind a heist. If his cunning plan fails, the station will fall and the Shadows will win a decisive victory, thereby plunging the galaxy into darkness.

(Originally aired on May 13, 1996)

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Michael Vejar

Knowing Is Half the Battle

SHERIDAN: The way things have been going lately, I've decided to starttaking Ivanova Lessons.

MARCUS: Captain, if I were you, I'd quit while I was ahead. Back on Minbar there was a saying among the other Rangers: The only way to get a straight answer out of Ranger One was to look at every reply in a mirror while hanging upside down from the ceiling.

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SHERIDAN: Did it work?
MARCUS: Oddly enough, yes, or after a while you passed out and had a vision. Either way the result was pretty much the same.

DELENN: Why do your people always ask if someone is ready right beforeyou're going to do something massively unwise?
SINCLAIR: Tradition.

GUEST STARS

Tim Choate - Zathras
Time Winters - Rathenn
Michael O'Hare - Ambassador Jeffrey Sinclair

ANALYSIS

"He is the closed circle. He is returning to the beginning." Although the Vorlon is talking about Sinclair's lunch date with destiny, this comment is an equally apt assessment of how much "War Without End" owes to earlier Babylon 5 episodes.

Most obviously, this two-part episode is a sequel to season one's "Babylon Squared". Where the earlier episode solved the mystery of what happened to Babylon 4, "War Without End" reveals the details behind its disappearance. Thus, while both episodes deal with the same event, this later storyline benefits from a more panoramic point of view.

Ultimately, this isn't simply a sequel, or even a variation on a familiar theme. "War Without End" owes a thematic debt to elements -- namely, Londo's vision of his ultimate fate -- seeded as far back in the series as "Midnight on the Firing Line". Again, perspective is critical. It's one thing to know what is going to happen. It's quite another to know the meaning behind these events. The underlying message here is simple:

"Now it can be told."

Time, time, time, see what's become of me

The events of "War Without End" are arguably the most pivotal in all of the Babylon 5 saga. If nothing else, the fact that we know the consequences of these events - in both the past and the present - before they happen affords them special significance.

If Sheridan and the others do not act, the war in the past ends differently leading directly to the fall of Babylon 5. Nowhere else in the series is the chain of cause and effect made so explicit.

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Just as these events are the linchpin that links the present to the past, Sinclair is the fixed point around which these events revolve. As he tells Delenn, "I'm like the arrow that springs from the bow. No hesitation, no doubts. The path is clear."

Although he has just been hit with the biggest news of his entire life, Sinclair is at peace. Mostly through more relaxed body language than we've ever seen from him, Michael O'Hare pitches his portrayal of B5's first commander in a slightly lower key.

It took place off-camera, but Jeff Sinclair has obviously gone through many changes since leaving Babylon 5.

COMING UP NEXT

"War Without End, Part Two" (naturally)

Londo's dream comes true
Sinclair's tale comes full circle
They are all The One