lurkers-guide/guide/046

<!-- TITLE Convictions -->

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

<blockquote><cite>
A series of bombings threatens the station, and Ivanova calls on some
unusual investigators to help solve the mystery.
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Kilpatrick,+Patrick">Patrick Kilpatrick</a> as Robert Carlson.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Turenne,+Louis">Louis Turenne</a> as Brother Theo.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/046">7.75</a>

Production number: 302
Original air week: November 13, 1995
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009OOFK/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: August 12, 2003

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Mike Vejar
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Backplot</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> All explosives manufactured in the Earth Alliance are laced with
	special chemical codes to allow them to be traced to a particular
	buyer.

</ul>

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> What was Londo doing on a transport arriving from the Minbari
	homeworld?  (Assuming he was; he may have been on the Centauri
	transport mentioned to G'Kar by Garibaldi.)

   <li> How will the influx of missionaries affect the station?

</ul>

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

   <li> Lennier has saved Londo twice now, once here and once (in a less
	extreme way) in
	<a href="021.html">"The Quality of Mercy."</a>
	And now he's likely to be decorated by the Centaurum.  How will
	that affect his position in the battle between light and dark,
	and his apparent new friendship with Vir
	(<a href="044.html">"The Fall of Night?"</a>)

   <li> Londo apparently doesn't place absolute faith in the dream of his
	death twenty years in the future
	(<a href="001.html">"Midnight on the Firing Line,"</a>
	<a href="031.html">"The Coming of Shadows."</a>)
	Otherwise he wouldn't have been afraid he was going to die in the
	elevator.  (Which isn't to say he wouldn't have still tried to call
	for help, of course.)

   <li> Lennier's own convictions, namely his prohibition against lying except
	to save face for another, seem to have weakened since his arrival,
	despite his pledge to do penance later.  On the other hand, perhaps
	he justified it in his mind by figuring he was saving face for
	the obnoxious man by getting him to stop making a fool of himself.

</ul>

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

   <li> G'Kar's song in the elevator is based on the ditty he sang at the
	beginning of
	<a href="005.html">"The Parliament of Dreams."</a>

   <li> We may have seen Carlson before, if briefly.  In
	<a href="044.html">"The Fall Of Night,"</a>
	as the Earth officials arrive, there's a man in the arrival area.
	He's slapped by a woman and walks after her when she leaves.  The
	man bears some resemblance to Carlson without the beard.  Perhaps
	the woman was his wife.

   <li> Lennier's fake disease, Netter's Syndrome, is no doubt named for
	executive producer Doug Netter.

   <li> The name Theo (short for Theodore) comes from the Greek word
	theodoros which means "gift of God."

   <li> Theo mentions his group was sent by New Melleray, which is
        <a href="http://www.newmelleray.org/">a real abbey.</a>

</ul>

<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li> What's great is that this [the second] season, we haven't had one
	single episode on
	the level of War Prayer or Infection or Grail, some of our weaker first
	season eps.  The worst we've done is pretty darned good.  What we're now
	working for in year three is that they're all better than that at their
	baseline rating.  And so far, they're killer...our second episode for
	year three, "Convictions," has a very different feel from anything
	we've done on the show to date, a very dark, scary and gritty feel, and
	probably one of the best character sequences in the series to date.
	We're also doing some major EFX blow-outs of a type other than "they go
	into space and shoot stuff."  Very interesting, creative, offbeat stuff.

<p>
   <li> <em>September 7, 1995</em>:
	I am thus far *very* happy with season three; we've got three shows
	in the can (edited, not yet scored or mixed), and shooting number four
	as I type this.  I think we're already a notch above our general
	episodes
	from year two, and "Convictions" is extremely intense, with a very
	different look and feel from anything we've done before.  Has kind of an
	NYPD Blue feel to it.

<p>
   <li> BTW, on the question of effects...here's one that's kinda
	interesting, in that I've seen a few comments here and there about
	how we must've mapped the CGI fireball into the hallway in
	"Convictions" where Londo jumps into the transport tube.  Some even
	offered you could tell the fire was CGI.

	<p>
	Nooooooop.

	<p>
	Here's how that shot was done: we built a miniature hallway
	(actually, "miniature" ain't the right word; it was something like 30
	feet long or more).  Painted it so that it looked exactly like the
	regular B5 hallways.  On film you absolutely can't tell the
	difference.  Then we mounted the hallway *vertically* alongside the
	outside of the main building here.  Set the camer at the top,
	pointing down into the hall.   We built a firebomb and set it at the
	far end of the hall (on the bottom, in other words).  We then set off
	the firebomb (with all the proper authorities present), so that it
	shot up the length of the vertical hall.   We overcranked the camera
	so it'd start in slow- motion, then pulled the plug so that the
	camera slowed down to normal speed...giving the sense of the fire
	swelling, then suddenly rushing forward with a huge fireball.   So
	when it looks like the "hallway" is on fire...it is.  Real fire.

	<p>
	Next we shot Londo (Peter) against a bluescreen, reacting to this,
	then diving to his left.  We then comp'd the bluescreen into the
	hallway, and used CGI to build a transport tube door to Londo's left,
	which then closed just as the fire reached it.

	<p>
	It was an utterly immense amount of work for, basically, a five
	second shot...but it looks 'way cool.

<p>
   <li> Effects shots like this one were/are supervised via our EFX supervisor,
	Ted Rae, working closely with the director and folks from Foundation.

<p>
   <li> Sue: as you're looking at the fireball approaching toward camera, he
	jumps to our left.  Trust me on this.

<p>
   <li> Another scene with Londo and Lennier,
	btw, contains a small nod to the online fans of the show; we can't and
	won't use story ideas, but there's been so much humor, reams and reams
	of it, every imaginable kind of joke, that I dropped one of these jokes
	into an episode...one that's come up at a lot of conventions and on the
	nets endlessly.  Just to acknowledge the fans in the only way I can.

<p>
   <li> I don't actually know for certain the origin of the joke; it was all
	over the nets, and the BBSs, uploaded places with several gazillion other
	lightbulb jokes (after I'd made the original version of this in the show),
	which is why I figured I'd drop it into the episode, since it was so common
	and associated with the nets.  While in the UK, I met a young man who said
	that he had been the first with that variation, and I have no reason not
	to believe him.  (A couple other people sent me email saying that they
	had also come up with that one; it's kind of obvious I guess, but again,
	I have no way of knowing what's true because it was just all over the
	place, never with attribution.)

<p>
   <li>@@@833492207 Actually, variations on that joke were told at a number of
	conventions; it's the obvious one to go for, given that for a while the
	"how many X does it take to change a lightbulb?" question was racing
	all around the nets. There were literally hundreds of them; of which,
	this or a variation on it was the most common one floating around...so
	I let it go in as a nod to the nets.

<p>
   <li> Londo and G'Kar no longer really have much to discuss; they're past that
	point, I figure.  They hate each other.

	<p>
	Londo wasn't on Minbar; he was seeing someone off on a ship going to
	Centauri Prime.

<p>
   <li>@@@864890688 Londo *does* have his moments when one almost likes him in
	spite of oneself; the second episode of year three has scenes in which
	you don't like him, and then you *do* like him enormously...then you
	don't again.  He's caught in the scissors...and trying madly to find
	some way out of the situation he's in.

<p>
   <li> Correct.  Louis was not available to use for "Twilight" for health
	reasons, but we like Louis a lot, and vowed to use him in another, even
	better role, at the first opportunity.  We seized it.

<p>
   <li> Finding character names is sometimes easy, sometimes hard; it really
	does vary.

	<p>
	And Theo was named for Vincent's brother.

<p>
   <li> It was a mild Spring day, warm, clear, sunny, when Vincent Van
	Gogh picked up his easel, and some paints, and walked a mile and a half
	to an open field where he often painted landscapes.  He set up his
	easel, sat under a tree for a while, ate part of an apple, composed a
	brief note to his brother Theo.  Then he pulled out a derringer and
	shot himself in the chest.

	<p>
	After an hour, realizing that he was not going to die for a
	while yet, he picked himself up and staggered the mile and half back to
	Theo's house, where a few hours later that evening he passed away in
	Theo's arms.

	<p>
	Some say his sad ending came about because he felt he was a
	burden to his brother Theo, and the guilt did him in; others because he
	sold only one painting during his life, for 48 francs, and he felt he
	would never become a painter of any worth.

	<p>
	On reflection, perhaps it was the thought of people bidding for
	his ear that did it.

<p>
   <li> I've always liked the name Theo, from Vincent's brother, so there
	was the sound of it; also the sense of it, in that Theo was a guide, a
	counselor, a confidante, which Theo might come to be in this; and,
	finally, Theodore means (I just lapsed on the actual definition) but
	either chosen (favored) of god or messenger of god (have to check my
	dictionary of names again), which is appropos.

<p>
   <li> We'll see Theo here and there as we go along this season.

<p>
   <li> <em>Any relation to the technomages?</em><br>
	No, I wouldn't think of them in technomage terms; if you look at the
	history of many of these orders, they've generally pulled together
	people of varying skills.  Ain't really that new an idea....
   
<p>
   <li> <em>Any connection between Theo's mission and the short story "The
	Nine Billion Names of God?"</em><br>
	No, there's no connection whatsoever.  The Tibetan monks in the
	story were specifically coming up with all the names of god in order to
	bring about the end of the world; Theo et al have come as an exercise in
	comparative religion, to learn what the other races call god, and how it
	compares.  As others have done before, right here on good old earth.

<p>
   <li> Re: "The Nine Billion Names of God," the
	whole purpose of that story had nothing to do with alien contact; it had
	to do with gettting all the earthbound names of God into a computer, so
	they could create the end of the world.  The monks are on B5 in an
	attempt at studying the different religions out there for the purpose of
	better understanding...or more succinctly, comparative religious
	studies, which long predate Clarke by, oh, about 500 years.

<p>
   <li>@@@864890688 <em>Are these the monks from
	<a href="036.html">"There All the Honor Lies?"</a></em><br>
	No, these are not the monks Sheridan met earlier.

<p>
   <li> <em>What were the floating discs at the crime scene?</em><br>
	It's a floating (air-compression) vidrecorder.

<p>
   <li> "B5 has gravity defying video cameras"

	<p>
	Only if you consider a plane or any other reasonable technology
	of flight to be gravity defying.

	<p>
	The video recorders are made of an extremely ultralight
	material, new alloys that in total weighs less than an ounce; it has a
	visible (and audible) air propulsion system, a high speed fan with a
	stabalizer/gyroscope that keeps it steady, and move it forward.

<p>
   <li>@@@864890688 If you didn't notice the effect, that's good; you
	shouldn't in many cases.  (How many folks noticed that the two-story
	shot of the blown sector of Convictions after the elevator boom is a
	digitally composited set, using two different sets?)

<p>
   <li> <em>Why did the "bomb squad" have to go out into
	space in order to gain access to the fusion reactor?</em><br>
	Going in the vacuum door was the fastest way to get a bunch of people in
	there, and presumably get a big object out again.  Instead of riding
	transport tubes to the core shuttle, then the core shuttle to the far
	end, then tubes to the bottom...you jump out, get picked up and dumped
	at the far end.  Takes 2 minutes rather than 10 or 15.  Remember, this
	place is five miles long.

<p>
   <li>@@@833443678 "We have a wonderful security system on B-5. Our monitors
	will show you everything, except a twenty foot long fusion reactor
	trigger that was put in the most sensitive part of the station by a
	certified nut case."

	<p>
	Show me where we ever said our monitors "will show you everything."
	They don't, they can't, and never have.  This is a city, and a
	quarter million people live here.  It would be impossible to monitor
	it all.  As for the fusion reactor...that was a ten foot object
	attached to a place where only station maintenance people went,
	which was his job.  He was cleared for that kind of access, and
	until/unless the device was activated, it was electronically
	dormant, you wouldn't notice anything.  Nor did it attract much
	attention.  Even though they *knew* something was there, they STILL
	had to look long and hard to find it, because it had been made to
	look just like everything else in the area.

	<p>
	And it's not like everybody *knew* he was a "certified nutcase" at
	the time.  He didn't have an identicard that said CERTIFIED NUTCASE
	on it.  He worked in station maintenance.  Nobody knew Tim McVeigh
	was a nut until he blew up a building.  Nobody knew that quiet
	little man in Boston was out strangling women in his spare time.


<p>
   <li> Doug's reaction to Netter's Syndrome was...amused, chagrined,
	and the promise of swift and terrible revenge.

</ul>