lurkers-guide/guide/063

<!-- TITLE Grey 17 Is Missing -->

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

<blockquote><cite>
Delenn agrees to lead the Rangers, but Marcus must protect her from a 
deadly threat. Garibaldi investigates a secret level of the station. 
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Englund,+Robert">Robert Englund</a> as Jeremiah.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Vickery,+John">John Vickery</a> as Neroon.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Winters,+Time">Time Winters</a> as Rathenn.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/063">6.93</a>

Production number: 319
Original air week: September 10, 1996 (UK)
                   October 7, 1996 (US)
<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 John Flinn III
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

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

   <li> The forces of light are now actively recruiting telepaths, but it's
	been a slow process.

   <li> Garibaldi's grandmother was a police officer in Boston.  (First
	mentioned in
	<a href="012.html">"By Any Means Necessary."</a>)

   <li> Valen originally set up the Rangers 1000 years ago, under the
	control of the Warrior Caste, but they have been inactive until
	recently.

   <li> Grey Sector in B5 is mainly comprised of industrial units.

   <li> No Minbari has killed another Minbari in 1000 years.

   <li> Delenn's father died ("passed beyond the veil") 10 years ago because he
	was heartbroken about the Earth-Minbari war. Delenn's mother entered
	the Sisters of Valeria.

   <li>@@@845319895 The security forces on B5 use PPGs rather than bullets
	because bullets run the risk of puncturing the station's hull.

</ul>

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

<ul>
   <li> What will be the limits of Ivanova's promise to Franklin?
   <li> How will being chosen as leader of the Rangers change Delenn?
   <li> Is Neroon right in suggesting Delenn is taking over control of Minbar?
   <li> Who or what was responsible for an entire level of Grey sector being
	lost from the view of the B5 residents?
   <li> What will happen to Grey 17 and the people there?
   <li> What will the future relationship be between the Warrior Caste and the
	Rangers?
   <li> Was Kosh present at the ceremony? If not, why not?

</ul>


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

   <li> Tension among the Minbari castes is increasing.
	Some members of the warrior caste think Delenn is a religious zealot
	who is trying to grab hold of military and political power. The warrior
	caste is unhappy about the religious caste building warships without
	telling them; believes the Rangers should be commanded by one of them,
	now that Sinclair has left; and is unhappy about non-Minbari being
	trained with Minbari in the Rangers. However, Neroon's experience with
	Marcus may change some of these perceptions.

   <li> Delenn's mother joined the Sisters of Valeria. Valeria is also the
	being that Minbari who were present at Kosh's appearance in the garden
	(<a href="044.html">"The Fall of Night"</a>)
	claimed to have seen. Is this just a coincidence, or is there a deeper
	relationship?

   <li>@@@845316165 Jeremiah's group must have contained some highly skilled
	computer hackers.  Getting the lifts to pass by their level would be
	the least of their troubles; since the station spins to simulate
	gravity, lower levels have greater apparent gravity.  Everyone below
	their level would be expecting slightly lower gravity than they'd
	actually experience.  Perhaps the difference would be too slight to
	alert people in a residential sector, but presumably industrial
	operations would be affected if gravity was off by a few percent.

   <li>@@@845318928 Jeremiah clearly knew about Minbari religion, given
	the similarity of his view of the universe and Delenn's
	(<a href="048.html">"Passing Through Gethsemane."</a>)
	Yet in that episode, Brother Edward clearly hadn't learned about
	Minbari beliefs, implying that the Minbari aren't generally open
	or forthcoming about them.  How did Jeremiah learn about Minbari
	religion?

   <li>@@@845319402 Garibaldi's makeshift gun couldn't have worked as
	shown.  Even if the steam were enough to detonate the gunpowder in
	one of the bullets, the first one to go off would almost certainly
	have been the one closest to the back of the pipe, where the heat was
	greatest; all the bullets would have been propelled out the pipe
	at once, and probably at low speed.

   <li>@@@845319850 Franklin's backup file on the underground railroad
	is code-named "Harriet."  This is probably a reference to Harriet
	Tubman, an escaped slave who was instrumental in running the original
	underground railroad in the United States.

</ul>

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

<ul>

   <li>@@@845621030 Sinclair's belongings include a medal for fighting on the
	Battle of the Line, his identicard, an Earthforce insignia,
	and the Ranger brooch.

   <li>@@@857686152 <a name="NO.paper">When Garibaldi falls unconscious,</a>
	the surrounding rubble
	includes, among other things, a newspaper with the headline "Santiago
	Elected."  That may indicate the amount of time the cult spent
	sequestered in Grey 17; Santiago's re-election took place three
	years earlier
	(<a href="001.html">"Midnight on the Firing Line."</a>)
	It's unlikely the paper dates from Santiago's original election;
	unless his previous term was less than a few years, the previous
	election would have happened long before Babylon 5 was constructed,
	possibly even before Babylon 4 vanished in 2254.

</ul>


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

<p>
   <li> Garibaldi has a big role in "Grey 17 Is Missing."

<p>
   <li> Lennier will be getting some more screen time shortly,
	in the next batch of episodes.  (There's some very nice stuff with him
	and both Delenn and Marcus in "Grey 17 Is Missing.")

<p>
   <li> You'll hear about Delenn's parents in
	"Grey 17 Is Missing."

<p>
   <li> The Jeremiah thread was
	one of those things that looks great on paper, but when you get it into
	a camera...I dunno, it's one of those weirdnesses that happens in
	television.  Sometimes you've got what you think is an average script
	and it just roars to life on-camera, and something that looks great on
	paper, but in real life...ehh...I'm happy with all the other stuff in
	the episode, but the Jeremiah thread didn't come off as it should've.

	<p>
	I think in part it's also my fault, in that my brain was gearing up for
	the stuff that begins ramping up starting with the next episode, and the
	Grey 17 thing was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, and there
	wasn't going to be a chance to do it down the road, if at all, after
	this season, so I went for it.  As for the Zarg, that's also one of
	those things that didn't come off visually as I'd wanted.  So overall,
	I'd agree...of all the season 3 eps, this one is probably the least
	effective of them all.  But one in a season, that ain't too bad....

<p>
   <li>@@@844797477 <em>Why did you write all the episodes this
	season?</em><br>
	"Was there some incident that we don't know about? It seems to me that
	there must have been. "

	<p>
	Nope.  No incident.  The situation with year 3 was that *so much* was
	being paid off, and set up, and foreshadowed, and required such intimate
	knowledge of where the show was going, and where it'd been, that it made
	it nearly impossible to bring in any outside writers.  

	<p>
	There has never been any series in television history where every
	episode was utterly beyond criticism.  Some are better, some are
	worse, some are average.  There are many Twilight Zones by Rod
	Serling that are utterly brilliant.  And some that just fall flat.
	That's the nature of the beast.  Sometimes something will look great
	on the page, and fall flat on the stage.  (And sometimes it happens
	in reverse; you think you've got something that won't work, and
	somehow the filmed version just takes off.) There's a lot about
	Walkabout I like; and there's some stuff that just didn't work out.
	You try something different here and there, and sometimes it works,
	and sometimes it don't.  TV, or any form of writing, is the constant
	process of trial and error.  It's not like one day you forget how to
	write, or you're writing bad...you very rarely fall below a certain
	facility once you reach it.

	<p>
	There's not a writer alive who has turned out nothing but terrific
	stuff.  Now, one could turn out a lifetime of mediocre stuff, by not
	trying...but I think it's better to shoot high, and sometimes fall,
	knowing that you'll get something great one out of every five tries,
	than not try at all and just do okay.

	<p>
	"Grey 17" is the same thing, for me.  There are bits in that I like a
	lot.  And some parts of it just fell down dreadfully.  That's simply
	the nature of the beast.  I thought I'd try something different in
	the tone of "Grey" and while most of the writing works (mostly), the
	production fell down on a couple of aspects.  It happens.  It doesn't
	mean anything.

	<p>
	On the other hand, the following 3, "Rock," "Shadow" and "Z'ha'dum"
	are some of the best stuff we've done.  The preliminary P5 survey has
	"Z'ha'dum" as the best episode of the entire series to date.  Did I
	suddenly learn to write better?  If there were a problem with being
	tired, then by all rights you should see a descending order in
	quality.  But these last 3 are some of our best work.

	<p>
	The real key here is something I heard someone say a while back about
	TV:  a flaw, or a flop, or a misstep happens by accident as often as
	by inability; but real quality is never an accident.  So the latter
	is more indicative of the level of the show than the former, since
	accidents or missteps *always* happen.

	<p>
	"Walkabout," for me, is a good episode with a very few clunky parts;
	for me, it's a middle of the road episode.  "Grey" falls a bit short
	of that, for me.  But then, I'm very hard on my shows; a lot of folks
	have liked "Walkabout" a *lot*.  I didn't much like "Infection," but
	many did; and some shows I love dearly, like "Geometry," don't catch
	on.  It's subjective.  And where you say the battle falls short,
	others like it...so on one level, I'd caution against applying your
	standard as an objective one that is somehow more true than another,
	and thus asking "what's wrong with *you* that I had this opinion?"
	If everyone on the planet shares that opinion, then you've got
	something.  Otherwise....

	<p>
	And there are always some people who don't want the character stuff
	at all, they want battles...and some for whom the CGI is of secondary
	interest to the plot...and those who want arc stories *only*...and
	those who like the stand-alones.  Some of it is a function of what
	you want.

	<p>
	Anyway...point being, and I went around the barn a few times to get
	there, no, there's no "incident" and I don't even know what this
	could refer to.  Some episodes work better for some people than
	others.  That will happen whether you've got 1 person or 50 people
	writing scripts.  I caught a lot of *very* negative comments on Peter
	David's script, which you cite (as well as many positive ones).  The
	Brits in particular seem to uniformly dislike that one.  And in the
	P5 surveys, the freelance scripts are *all* in the bottom third of
	the rankings.  So it's really not a question of freelancers or no,
	it's just that TV is variable, as is any kind of writing.  Not every
	episode is going to work for you.  Nor should you expect it to.  I'm
	very much an X-Files fan...but there are some scripts that work
	better for me than others.  Doesn't mean anything other than that
	show didn't quite jell for me.  That's the nature of TV.

	<p>
	I'm sure somebody will cite this as being defensive about it, but
	honest and true, I'm not.  I'm just trying to explain it from this
	end of things.  My prior exec producer said, "You're doing *real*
	good if, in a season, you've got one-third that are pretty good,
	one-third that are okay, and one-third you never want to see again
	the rest of your natural life."  I think we do a heck of a lot better
	than that, and that's a heck of an accomplishment.

<p>
   <li>@@@844381513 I think it's about 3/4ths of a good episode.  Where it
	falls down, for me, is the Zarg...I just have this constant desire to
	go to everyone's house and personally apologize....

<p>
   <li>@@@844393625 <em>How did they sneak the Zarg onto the station?</em><br>
	There was a line about slipping the egg into the station...don't
	remember now if it made it through the edit or not.

<p>
   <li>@@@852231693 Entil-Zha, whoever that is at the time, is for all intents
	and purposes the One for the Rangers.

<p>
   <li> <em>Does Neroon's revelation at the end of the episode mean that
	the warrior caste is now more willing to fight beside the religious 
	caste?</em><br>
	I think he's closer to an understanding, but we'll see if the others all
	feel the same way.

<p>
   <li>@@@852231693 <em>Why did Sinclair/Valen leave the warrior caste in
	charge of the Rangers, if they aren't involved in the war?</em><br>
	Because *at the time* the Warrior Caste *was* involved, and it
	would've been a slap to them to do so.

<p>
   <li> <em>Do Minbari beliefs have some bearing on the true nature of the B5
	storyline?</em><br>
	It has some bearing, in a way, but more in a thematic than literal
	sense.

<p>
   <li> <em>Was Delenn's visit to the city as a child deeply important, since
	she only saw her mother twice?</em><br>
	You're right that it was a big deal to them, but it doesn't really
	center in the story much, so I don't know if it'll ever be explored.
	It's just background detail at this point.

<p>
   <li> <em>What happened to Delenn's father?</em><br>
	He croaked.

<p>
   <li>@@@844393738 <em>Were the people in Grey 17 there by choice?</em><br>
	Depends on your definition, but basically, they were there as
	part of this cult...but any good cult leader knows you should make it
	just a *bit* hard for them to get out.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974766 It's Harriet for Harriet Tubman, who ran the slave
	underground railroad around the time of the Civil War.

	<p>
	And no matter how much Ivanvoa trains, she'll never be much
	past a P1, and that's more or less useless to them.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974896 <em>So her ability is never going to factor into the
	story?</em><br>
	Only if one assumes everything applies only to the Shadow war.

</ul>

<p>
Originally compiled by Jason Snell.