lurkers-guide/guide/074

<!-- TITLE The Illusion of Truth -->

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

<blockquote><cite>
ISN sends a team to do a second story about Babylon 5.
</cite>

<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Griggs,+Jeff">Jeff Griggs</a> as Dan Randall.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/074">7.56</a>

Production number: 408
Original air week: February 17, 1997
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000DGBEY/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: January 6, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Stephen Furst
</pre>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Plot Points</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@856161850 Clark has reinstated the Earth Senate in some form.  It
	has begun investigating alleged alien influence in the entertainment
	industry and extracting confessions and lists of collaborators from
	writers and directors.

   <li>@@@856161850 Sheridan's father was a diplomat.  The family farm has
	been burned to the ground, and his father's whereabouts are unknown.

   <li>@@@856161850 Earth, according to ISN, is slowly retaking Mars from the
	rebels who took over when Clark's forces attacked
	(<a href="054.html">"Severed Dreams."</a>)

</ul>

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

   <li>@@@856161850 Will the newscast prove convincing to people on Earth?

   <li>@@@856161850 Where is Sheridan's father?  What about his mother?

   <li>@@@856652157 What names did Sheridan give his father?

   <li>@@@856652157 Is Garibaldi's salvage business as it appears, or is he
	using it as a cover for other activities?

   <li>@@@856810832 How did Randall get into the cryogenic freezer area?  If
	it's really restricted as he says, someone must have let him in.

</ul>

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

<p>
   <li>@@@856651781 Psi Corps presumably now knows the fate of the telepaths;
	two of their names are plainly visible behind Randall (see
	<a href="#NO.names">Notes.</a>)
	Will the Corps try to come after them?  What about the allies of
	the Shadows, who may have some interest in the telepaths' implants?
	If Shadow ships were left behind (not unlikely, considering there
	were lots of them buried underground) they'll need pilots who've
	gone through the proper preparation
	(<a href="052.html">"Messages From Earth"</a>)
	and the telepaths are ready-made candidates.

<p>
   <li>@@@856651781 Garibaldi seems to have turned against Sheridan
	completely, going so far as to allude to him as "the devil."  Is that
	a direct result of his programming (or whatever was triggered by the
	message in
	<a href="073.html">"Epiphanies"</a>)
	or is there some other reason?

<p>
   <li>@@@862901244 ISN's new title sequence reflects the provincial,
	Earth-centric views of the Clark government: after a flight through
	space, the sequence ends up centered on Earth and the Moon.

</ul>

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

<p>
   <li>@@@856652157 The newscast was broadcast on April 12, 2261.  Four
	historical events were cited as taking place on the same date:
	Yuri Gagarin's flight into space (April 12, 1961,) President Clinton's
	establishment of a "Commission on the Future" in 1999, the start of
	construction of the first lunar colony in the Sea of Tranquility in
	2018, and the founding of the Psi Corps in 2161.

<p>
   <li>@@@856735671 The confession of the director bore strong resemblance to
	the confessions extracted by the House Un-American
	Activities Commission in the US during the 1950s.  In that case it
	was Communists and homosexuals, not aliens, but the focus on
	entertainers was the same, as was the practice of demanding lists of
	collaborators.  Those who refused to cooperated were "blacklisted," and
	found themselves unable to get work in Hollywood.

	<p>
	In fact, the names cited are based on actual people blacklisted in the
	1950s.  Beth Trumbo is likely a reference to writer Dalton Trumbo,
	Adrian Mostel to producer Adrian Scott and actor Zero Mostel, and
	Carleton Jarrico to writer Paul Jarrico.

	<p>@@@878169371 
	Paul Jarrico died in an automobile accident on October 28, 1997, the
	day after receiving a standing ovation at a Hollywood ceremony honoring
	the surviving blacklisted screenwriters.

<p>
   <li>@@@856201937 <a name="NO.names">Two names</a>
	are visible on the cryogenic freezers during
	Randall's report.  One, Carolyn Sanderson, is Bester's love
	(<a href="058.html">"Ship of Tears."</a>)
	The other is John Flinn III, one of the show's directors.

<p>
   <li>@@@924983666 The psychological phenomenon of hostages sympathizing
	with their captors is the Stockholm syndrome, 
	not the Helsinki syndrome as stated in the episode.  Some readers
	have commented that both names are correct, but that appears to not be
	the case according to psychological literature.  For example,
	"Stockholm syndrome" appears 30 times in the journals of the American
	Psychological Association from 1887 to 1999, but "Helsinki syndrome"
	isn't mentioned even once.

<p>
   <li>@@@857324834 The newscast misspelled Yuri Gagarin's name; it was
	spelled "Gargarin" on the screen.

</ul>

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

<p>
   <li>@@@865288546 It's a good and creepy episode.  I like it when things
	get creepy.

<p>
   <li>@@@856650112 Stephen has directed before, yes, though he hasn't done
	that much episodic TV work.

	<p>
	The final shot was strictly described in the script; the monitor
	POV, the relative positions of everyone, the slight fisheye look and
	the absolute silence.

<p>
   <li>@@@857326170 <em>Was Garibaldi's flashback shot in advance?</em><br>
	Somtimes, yeah, we'll gang together shots in one location that will
	spill across several episodes, and definitely did that in Garibaldi's
	case.  I just figure out what's coming, and write those specific
	additional scenes prior to the rest of the scripts.

<p>
   <li>@@@856812947 <em>Where did the Starfury model Sheridan was looking at
	in the war room come from?</em><br>
	Actually, I think the Starfury model was an illegal one we confiscated.

	<p>
	Waste not, want not...

<p>
   <li>@@@856650112 <em>Was the psychologist reading from a
	teleprompter?</em><br>
	Actually, no, he wasn't reading off a teleprompter at all.
	His eyes may have been moving, but there was no reading involved.

<p>
   <li>@@@856734326 "In the Delenn/Sheridan interview, there is a 
	change in the vocal acoustics of the journalist
	for the "new" questions he asked."

	<p>
	And not just in the voice quality...look at the footage again.  He's
	sitting in a different chair, in a different room.

<p>
   <li>@@@856337819 <em>About the names cited in the confession</em><br>
	Yes, they're based on the real names of writers who were
	blacklisted, Dalton Trumbo and Paul Jarrico.

<p>
   <li>@@@856556184 Parks (the person who's naming names) was also named after
	one of those who testified before HUAC.

<p>
   <li>@@@856914572 <em>Were the names dubbed in?</em><br>
	Only Jarrico was dubbed, because it was mispronounced.

<p>
   <li>@@@856432607 It's a period too few people really know much about,
	and it never hurts to point to the past in order to warn about the
	future.

<p>
   <li>@@@865288546 This ep is one that'll be discussed a lot, but not
	rewatched a lot, because it's just really hard to watch, knowing what's
	coming.  It really does tend to upset people.

<p>
   <li>@@@856557332 If it's a little close to home...you have to remember I
	came out of journalism, that was where I cut my teeth as a writer,
	working for newspapers and magazines.  You see a lot of the tricks, some
	good, some not so good, used for purposes that are sometimes good or not
	so good, distortions on the left and distortions on the right. So it
	wasn't hard to just tweak it a bit.

	<p>
	Thing to remember, though, is that this isn't ISN as we've known it in
	the past, at least not to this extreme.  If anything, this ep should
	point to the difference between journalism, albeit biased, and
	propaganda, which is all ISN is now, and how only an informed viewership
	can prevent the one from sliding into the other.

<p>
   <li>@@@861327215 <em>Aren't there networks besides ISN?</em><br>
	ISN is the one network that can handle *interstellar*
	broadcasts, which reqire a massive amount of energy, logistics,
	setup...there are other, local, planetary networks around Earth, and a
	few specialized channels for military and some commercial use...but ISN
	is the biggest, and because of that is very much in Earthgov's pocket.

<p>
   <li>@@@857326119 It was most definitely difficult and painful for me to
	write. I I am as much involved with these characters as anyone else, and
	doing this kind of thing to them is hard.  And you have to put yourself
	in the minds of those doing this, and that's a dark place to be.

	<p>
	And yeah, I know people who were harmed in the blacklist, and
	I've seen others, and myself, sometimes harmed by those who like to
	twist things around to their own benefit.

<p>
   <li>@@@857334668 "FWIW, that was your most courageous episode yet, IMHO."

	<p>
	I appreciate the sentiment, so don't take this as lack of
	gratitude on my part; I'm happy you perceive it that way.

	<p>
	But courageous?  No.

	<p>
	Courageous as an apellation belongs to the South American
	writers who insist on telling the truth about their governments, who
	risk death on a daily basis for doing so...and to other writers doing
	similar work in other countries.

	<p>
	Yeah, it was kind of a shot to the midsection for some groups,
	with a certain element of biting the hand that feeds you, but the truth
	is, ain't nobody gonna come to my door in the middle of the night with
	death squads, take me away, and torture me.  If you want to hear about
	real courage, join PEN International, or Amnesty International.  They
	can always use the help.

<p>
   <li>@@@857981577 "This B5 episode should be required viewing in University
	media and history classes."

	<p>
	Funny thing is, I've since received several requests from instructors at
	various colleges asking if they could use the show in their classroom to
	illustrate the points raised.  Kinda nice....

<p>
   <li>@@@857334746 I don't make any blanket condemnations of journalists.
	For one thing, there's a difference between portraying journalism in a
	relatively free society, and one that's operating under a dictatorship,
	a la President Clark. It's the difference between journalism and
	propaganda.

	<p>
	In "Midnight on the Firing Line," we had a reporter there doing
	a straight-ahead story; in "Point of No Return" we had the Good
	Journalists fighting to reveal the truth even as Clark was shutting
	them down.

	<p>
	There have been favorable portrayals; it's just that under the
	current regime, they don't have access to the media.

<p>
   <li>@@@861086670 I am definitely *not* anti-reporter...I'm against the
	*control* of truth by any government or political agenda.  We are made
	stronger by a multiplicity of voices, and the more those voices are
	allowed access to a level playing field, the more often the truth will
	come out to play.

	<p>
	The third name was Jarrico, after Paul Jarrico, also
	blacklisted.

<p>
   <li>@@@864846949 The ISN cameras are not capable of autonomous operation,
	but they can be progammed within a parameter set.  The wand is a control
	device to change those parameters.  Thus, one operator, two cameras (or
	more!)

	<p>
	There was a distinct anti Minbar/Minbari sentiment among this particular
	crew, as evidenced by the later parts of the show, and it isn't hard to
	imagine that the bumping was at the behest of the wand wielder.  If
	Lennier was simply annoyed, advantage ISN.  If he reacted violently,
	advantage ISN. I'm sure that footage will be used on another ISN
	propoganda broadcast.  (You can see it on Channel 134 of your cable)(Oh,
	sorry, Channel 134 is not availbale in all sectors after curfew)

	<p>
	George Johnsen<br>
	CoProducer, B5

</ul>