lurkers-guide/guide/029

<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>

<blockquote><cite>
Londo summons his three wives to Babylon 5.  A mysterious man from Talia's
past reappears.
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Carr,+Jane+(II)">Jane Carr</a> as Timov.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Nettleton,+Lois">Lois Nettleton</a> as Daggair.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Valk,+Blair">Blair Valk</a> as Mariel.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Szarabajka,+Keith">Keith Szarabajka</a> as Matthew Stoner.
</blockquote>

(Originally titled "Pestilence, Famine and Death.")

<pre>
Sub-genre: Comedy
<a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/029">7.68</a>

Production number: 208
Original air date: December 14, 1994
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000087EYB/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: April 29, 2003

Written by Peter David
Directed by John C. Flinn, III
</pre>

<h3>Watch For:</h3>
<ul>
   <li> G'Kar tossing something to someone at a party.
   <li> Daffy Duck.
</ul>

<p>
<hr size=3>
<p>

<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>
<P>
Centauri culture is built largely on family stature, and virtually all of an
individual's position and influence derive from the relative standing of
the family.  Links between families can be very important, and marriages
are the primary way of forging these links.  Marriages are almost always
arranged by the families for the benefit of the families, regardless of the
wishes (if any) of the Centauri being married. Londo's marriages are 
notoriously bad.  Indeed, he calls his three wives Pestilence, Famine and 
Death, and it's been hinted that he took a post  to Babylon 5, a post where 
he knew he'd be forced to concede defeat after defeat to the hated Narn, 
simply to escape the three of them.
<P>
The control Psi-Corps maintains over its members is quite pervasive, 
extending to all levels of their personal lives.  In one respect they are
similar to the Centauri -- they arrange marriages between their members.
This, coupled with the fact that all persons showing any psi talent at all
are pressed into the Corps or nullified, makes them a budding closed
society.  Most importantly, once in Psi-Corps you are theirs forever, and
they can do anything with you they want.

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>
<ul>
   <li> Why do G'Kar and Mariel know each other?  What's been going on in
	the past with the two of them?
   <li> Why did Psi-Corps dissolve the marriage between Stoner and Talia?
</ul>

<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> Stoner is a puzzle.  Did he really ever leave Psi-Corps?  He is a strong projective
	empath.  He may be a receptive empath as well--but since he treats 
	people rather poorly this doesn't seem very likely...at best it's unproven.  
	Given his talent he could have manipulated the people around him from 
	the very beginning, up to and including letting him leave.  His claim that he 
	lost his talent altogether is disproven rather quickly by a group of amateurs.  
	Psi-Corps scientists working on modifying psi talents would have been very 
	difficult to fool. On the whole, it's most likely that Sheridan is right, and
	Stoner was actively working for Psi-Corps all along.

   <li> At first glance, one might wonder why on Earth Stoner would be in
	on a plot to kill Londo.  G'Kar notes to Mariel that Stoner just happened
	to bring the artifact onboard on the eve of Londo's ascension
	anniversary, which would be too staggering a coincidence, <em>if</em>
	it had been booby-trapped from the start.  However:

   <li> G'Kar may have been behind the plot to kill Londo.  In the
	scene where Mariel notices his boots, just before he walks off,
	G'Kar tosses something small to her.  Perhaps it's just a grape,
	since he was picking them from the table.  Or it could be a set of
	poison darts to load into the statue.  If so, Stoner is even more
	innocent than he claims to Sheridan and Garibaldi; the statue really
	was completely harmless when he brought it aboard.  However:

   <li> G'Kar later says to Mariel, "Mysteries give me a pain."  And the only
	way that he can ease the pain is to decipher the mystery.  He
	then goes on to describe the situation with Mariel and Londo as
	the mystery that he had to solve.  If so, then he was uninvolved
	in the attempt on Londo -- which again raises the question:  What
	did G'Kar toss to Mariel?

   <li> If G'Kar was involved, perhaps G'Kar knows what Londo is up to with
	the Shadows and wants to assassinate him for that reason, or perhaps 
	it's just the general enmity between the two.  Or maybe the whole thing 
	was Mariel's idea and G'Kar merely gave her the means.  

    <li> Whatever the answer to "who knew what, and when?" the relationships 
	remain.  G'Kar knows Mariel well enough to have a private and 
	informal discussion with her, and he may have been involved in the
	plot to kill Londo.  Stoner (and by extension Psi-Corps) may know
	Mariel, and may also have been involved in the plot to kill Londo --
	at least insofar as Stoner delivered the instrument of his (near) death.

   <li> Talia's relationship to Psi-Corps is called into question here on both
	ends.  First, it's clear that she is completely disillusioned with the
	corps.  She confesses to Garibaldi that Psi-Corps frightens her.  She
	is presumably deeply conditioned, but her loyalties are wavering
	despite this.  On the other side of the equation, if Stoner is still
	Corps then his offer to her is also on the behest of Psi-Corps.  Did
	her actions during 
	<a href="028.html">"A Spider in the Web"</a>
	bring her to the attention of Bureau 13?  And if so, are they trying to
	unofficially take her out of the picture?  

   <li> Though it at first glance might appear to be a comedic throwaway line,
	Delenn's final complaint may actually be the most important revelation
	of the entire episode.  It implies that her transformation has given
	her a human reproductive system.  Possibly that was even the point
	of the transformation; if indeed the change was made to bring humans
	and Minbari closer together, a child born of a human father and a
	Minbari mother might be considered a powerful link by some.

   <li> Which, of course, begs the question: who does she intend the father
	to be, if this is what she has in mind?  Sinclair seems an obvious
	choice, given the evidence that she believes him to be the
	reincarnation of a great Minbari soul (cf.
	<a href="002.html">"Soul Hunter,"</a>
	among others.)

   <li> Psi Corps seems to be big on assigning companions.  In addition to
	Stoner, Talia was assigned a support officer, Abby, during her first
	year at the Psi Corps center when she was a girl
	(<a href="028.html">"A Spider in the Web."</a>)

</ul>

<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> The name of Timov's father, "Alghul," means "The Demon" in Arabic.
	It may also be connected to the comic book character Ras Al-Ghul
	("Head of the Demon") from the Batman series, debatably the Batman's
	most dangerous foe.  Ras' daughter, Talia, has been the Batman's
	lover, and is the mother of his child.  In any case, Londo has
	remained married to the daughter of "The Demon," appropriate
	given his recent acquaintances.

</ul>

<h2><a name="JS">Peter David speaks</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> Y'know...for the past five years I've been writing Trek novels, and
	fans kept asking, "When are you going to start doing Trek TV 
	episodes?"
	<p>
	So here comes B5, I do an episode...and what do the fans keep asking?
	When am I going to do a B5 novel.
	<p>
	NYAAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHH!!!

<p>
   <li> [Re: Talia] My feeling was that it was something that had been 
	building slowly within her ever since the Ironheart episode.  That
	although she had been *saying* she was devoted, well...the difference
	between the reality of a B5 and the frequent unreality of STTNG is 
	that folks don't always say exactly what's on their mind (kind of like
	the real world.)  As it turned out, my own thoughts on Talia
	dovetailed with future plans for her.
	<p>
	Daggair was Pestilence.  Timov was Famine.  Mariel was Death.
	Originally I was going to have each of their names reflect their
	respective "incarnations," but decided that was too cutesy.  The
	only holdover from that idea is Timov's name which is, of course,
	Vomit spelled backwards.

<p>
   <li> Daggair is Pestilence, Timov is Famine, and Mariel is Death.

	<p>
	At first I was going to have all their names be reflections of the
	titles "assigned" them by Londo, but I decided that would be too
	cutesy.  The only holdover from that idea is Timov, whose name
	backwards is, of course, Vomit.  (I'll never forget Jane Carr coming
	over to me the fifth day of shooting and saying in that accented
	voice of hers, "Peter...did you *know* that my character's name is
	vomit spelled backwards?"  Uhhhh...well, yeah...)

	<p>
	You all realize, of course, that Londo is--by process of elimination--
	War.

	<p>
   <li> <cite>In response to someone who thought JMS wanted a line of
	dialogue inserted</cite>
	<br>
	This is a total misinterpretation of a statement I made, and yet another
	example of how the information age can also be the misinformation age.
	Incorrect "facts" can make the rounds at light speed and stay there.

	<p>
	I did *not* say that Joe wanted one particular line put into the script.
	What I *said* (in response to a question some time ago of "How much 
	did JMS tell you to put into the script?  How much of the events were
	dictated) was that all I was given was one line of *description* (much
	like a log line you'd see in TV Guide).  The line was something to the
	effect of, "Londo's wives show up on B5 and, in the way that Londo 
	handles the difficulties that ensue, we learn something about the type
	of man that he is."  I explained this in order to make clear how much
	latitude JMS gives writers on the show, as opposed to the omnipresent
	smothering hands-on attitude of other programs.

	<p>
	And somehow this became mutated into "JMS has a line of dialogue that
	he wanted inserted."

<p>
   <li> How funny.  Other people who stated flatly that they likewise knew
	Londo loudly proclaimed (over on Usenet) that he would have chosen
	Daggair.  Maybe he's a kind of tough guy to know.

<p>
   <li> <em>Poster had no trouble guessing; the actress playing Timov "was the
	most well-known actress of them all"</em><br>
	Oh, I don't know.  Lois Nettleton's career goes way further back than
	Jane Carr's does.  Although Jane *is* from the Royal Shakespeare 
	Company (and yes, she did work with Patrick Stewart.  She's so pleased
	that now she too has portrayed a bald SF icon.)

<p>
   <li> *I* didn't get "bitch" past the censors.  I just put it in the
	script.
	<p>
	(What I loved was Daggair's expression on that line.  It's the only 
	time she let her facade slip and she looked like she was ready to
	slug Timov.)

<p>
   <li> <em>The second scene between Garibaldi and Stoner was intense</em><br>
	Tension really crackled between the two of them, didn't it?  In one 
	of the takes, it was so intense that at the end, the director forgot
	to yell "Cut."  Instead he shouted, "God, that was great!"

<p>
   <li> <em>Thanks for showing us another side of Garibaldi</em><br>
	Oh, the side was already there, in my opinion.  I think back to
	previous episodes where Garibaldi was all for spacing that serial 
	killer.  When he encounters people he doesn't like, or have done dirt
	to people who are Garibaldi's friends, he can be pretty ruthless.

<p>
   <li> As we've seen, Garibaldi doesn't exactly have the easiest time being
	demonstrative in his feelings for women.

</ul>

<h2>jms speaks</h2>
<ul>

<p>
   <li> Originally, "Soul Mates" was intended to be broadcast after "A Race
	Through Dark Places."  ARTDP required a rather substantial amount of
	post production work and audio design; "Mates" did not.  Rather than
	rush "Race," we decided it was okay to air those two in reverse order.
	If they have aired with "Race" first in the UK, then yes, it's 
	different than the US order, but it *is* the correct production and 
	story order.

<p>
   <li> All things considered, the episode went through fairly cleanly, script-
	wise, not much in the way of revision.  Peter has a good ear for
	dialog (not surprising).  So for the most part it was little stuff; for
	example...Peter came up with, "Either I'm in hell or in medlab," to 
	which I appended, "...either way, the decor needs work."  Which is kind
	of the fun in getting an outside script; you can hear the first part of
	a line you'd never considered, and knowing the character, you can take
	it just a little further.

<p>
   <li> Timov's "WHO IS THIS?!" in that high-pitched voice would also be a
	great one for an answering machine.

<p>
   <li> What I love best about this is that given the time of year [of its
	North American premiere], "Soul Mates" is basically our Christmas 
	episode.

	<p>
	I mean, are we perverse or what...?

<p>
   <li> . . . when you say "why wasn't Mariel arrested on the spot by 
	Garibaldi and her quarters searched," you omit both legal procedure
	and evidentiary law.

	<p>
	You arrest someone AFTER you have reasonable cause and sufficent 
	evidence to justify it.  You don't need enough evidence to convict, 
	just to arrest or indict.  So the order is reversed for starters.

	<p>
	Second, what evidence *was* there to be found if he HAD searched her
	quarters?  She neither brought nor had ANYthing of an incriminating
	nature. She bought the figurine in the bazaar...and that's all she 
	had, and all she used.  There WAS no evidence in her quarters to find.

	<p>
	(Believe me, I spent 2 years on MURDER, SHE WROTE, and we learned a 
	lot about how this stuff works.  You can't just go around arresting 
	people willy nilly, and the evidence must exist, and be sufficient, 
	and locatable.)

<p>
   <li> Peter's having the time of his life.  He loves where his character
	is going, loves the range of emotions he gets to play...I saw him for
	a bit on the set today, shooting "Soul Mates," and he's just tickled
	(particularly since he's acting opposite Lois Nettleton, Jane Carr
	and Blair Valk as his three wives).

</ul>

<hr>
Compiled by Steven Grimm and Dave Zimmerman
<hr>