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lurkers-guide


								<!-- 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>