brennen
/
lurkers-guide


								<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>