Babylon 5: The Gathering
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| Babylon 5: The Gathering | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| Running time | 89 minutes |
| Creator | J. Michael Straczynski |
| Written by | J. Michael Straczynski |
| Directed by | Richard Compton |
| Produced by | Robert Latham Brown |
| Starring | Michael O'Hare Tamlyn Tomita Jerry Doyle Mira Furlan Blaire Baron John Fleck Peter Jurasik Andreas Katsulas Johnny Sekka Patricia Tallman |
| Music by | Stewart Copeland Christopher Franke (1998 re-edit) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language | English |
| Original channel | PTEN |
| Release date(s) | February 22, 1993 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Babylon 5: The Gathering is the pilot movie of the science fiction television series Babylon 5. The episode aired on February 22, 1993. The events in "The Gathering" took place approximately one year before the events of the first season.
Many elements of the pilot were changed when the series began, giving the pilot a different feel than the rest of the series. This was most evident in the prosthetics, sets, music, and cast members. Instead of Claudia Christian as Susan Ivanova, the first officer was Laurel Takashima (played by Tamlyn Tomita). The medical officer was Dr. Benjamin Kyle (played by Johnny Sekka), rather than Richard Biggs as Stephen Franklin. The retroactive continuity used to explain this typical cast change is that these two characters saw Kosh outside his encounter suit and thus had to be removed from duty - Kosh's secrecy is a running theme in the show.
Patricia Tallman played Lyta Alexander - she was replaced in the first season by Andrea Thompson as Talia Winters - but Tallman would return later in the series, first as a recurring character and then as a regular. The alien characters - such as Delenn and G'Kar - appeared slightly different because the prosthetics were different for the pilot episode.
[edit] Synopsis
In the earth year 2257, a multitude of humans and non-humans gather deep in neutral space at a new station, Babylon 5. Some of them are members of the station crew, including Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima, Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, and Medical Officer Benjamin Kyle. Others are ambassadors from major alien governments: Ambassador G'Kar from the Narn Regime, Ambassador Delenn from the Minbari Federation, and Ambassador Londo Mollari from the Centauri Republic. Still others are refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats, and travelers from a hundred worlds.
Babylon 5 is the fifth in a series of space stations dedicated to the dream of a galaxy without war, a dream that species from different worlds might live side-by-side in mutual respect. The dream of peace between the five federations is constantly in danger; the first three Babylon stations were sabotaged and destroyed, while the fourth disappeared without a trace twenty-four hours after it became operational. Significant tensions still exist between the major species, especially between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari Federation (they had fought a brutal war), and between the Narn and the Centauri (the Narn had been slaves of the Centauri for a hundred years). Babylon 5 represents the universe's last, best hope for peace. It will be the base of operations for an Advisory Council, containing representatives from each of the five major federations, similar to the United Nations on Earth before it was dissolved. Commander Sinclair will represent the Earth Alliance on the Advisory Council, while ambassadors from the four major alien governments will comprise the other four members of the Advisory Council.
As the crew awaits the arrival of the fourth and final alien ambassador, Ambassador Kosh from the Vorlon Empire, a transport ship arrives from Earth, bearing Lyta Alexander, a human telepath who joins the station crew, and Del Varner, a civilian. As Lyta is settling in, Commander Sinclair receives a visit from an old flame, Carolyn Sykes. Ambassador Kosh arrives two days ahead of schedule, and is on board the station less than a minute when he suddenly falls ill, apparently from poisoning. Dr. Kyle conducts a medical investigation and seeks to prevent Kosh's death, while Security Chief Garibaldi conducts a security investigation. Ambassador Londo Mollari quickly becomes a suspect in the case, as he had failed to show up at the appointed time with the other ambassadors to welcome Kosh aboard. As a security precaution, Commander Sinclair seals off the station, allowing no one to board or disembark. Worried that, if Kosh dies, the Vorlons will attack and destroy the station, Dr. Kyle and Lt. Cmdr. Takashima persuade Lyta to perform an unauthorized mind scan on the unconscious Kosh. As she conducts the scan, Lyta sees what Kosh saw as he boarded the station: Commander Sinclair welcoming him aboard, shaking his hand -- and poisoning him. Lyta accuses Sinclair of attempting to murder the ambassador.
Upon receiving word that Sinclair has become the primary suspect in the case, Earth Central removes Sinclair from the Advisory Council, and puts Takashima in his place. The Advisory Council considers a motion made by Ambassador G'Kar to turn Sinclair over to the Vorlon Empire, to stand trial for attempted murder. Lt. Cmdr. Takashima votes no; Ambassador Delenn abstains; Ambassador Mollari votes in favor. Ambassador G'Kar reveals that he has received a proxy vote from the Vorlon Empire -- a "yes" vote, which seals Sinclair's fate. Sinclair is told that he will be deported to the Vorlon Empire in twelve hours.
Following various leads, Garibaldi comes to suspect Del Varner might have been involved in Kosh's poisoning. When he enters Varner's quarters, however, he discovers Varner dead in a fish tank. Stumped, Garibaldi begins to doubt that he will ever solve the case. Meanwhile, Dr. Kyle discovers an antidote to the poison, and begins to apply it on Kosh. Londo apologies to Garibaldi for voting in favor of Sinclair's deportation and tells him that G'Kar had pressured him to vote as he did. G'Kar meets with Lyta and tells her that there has been a complication. Lyta heads for the medical lab, where she begins adjusting some of the settings that are keeping Kosh alive; when Dr. Kyle realizes what she's doing, he tries to stop her, and she attacks him. At that moment, a second Lyta enters the room -- the real Lyta. Lyta's double manages to escape.
Garibaldi leads Sinclair to an area of the station that has been breached by a small ship, and tells Sinclair that another dead body has been found on the station. The person has been dead for sixteen hours, but he was also reported as having been seen, alive, since then. Upon further investigation in Varner's quarters, Garibaldi learns that Varner had been smuggling illegal items between systems, and that he most recently had gone to the Antares sector to acquire a changeling net -- a device that can make an individual appear to look like somebody else. The crew realizes that Kosh had not been poisoned by Sinclair when he arrived at the station, but rather that he had been poisoned by someone who was using the changeling net to look like Sinclair. Since the use of such a device would put out a lot of energy, Takashima uses her scanners to pinpoint an area of the station with a high concentration of unidentified energy use. Sinclair and Garibaldi head for that part of the station, just as a Vorlon squadron arrives in the vicinity of the station to pick up Sinclair for his voyage to the Vorlon homeworld.
Sinclair and Garibaldi confront the mysterious assailant. Garibaldi is injured in the firefight. Sinclair finds himself fighting against a station technician, then against Del Varner, then against Lyta, then against himself. Finally, the changeling net is disabled, revealing the assailant to be a Minbari assassin. The assassin is a member of the Minbari warrior caste, and wanted to discredit Sinclair as retribution for Sinclair's role in the Earth-Minbari war. Sinclair asks the assassin why he did it; the assassin replies, "There is a hole in your mind." Sinclair, realizing that the assassin has triggered an explosive charge, manages to get away just before an explosion rips a hole in the station's hull, throwing the station off its axis, and beginning to tear the station apart from the inside. Takashima uses the station stabilizers to reestablish the station's axis.
The Vorlon delegation, now satisfied that Sinclair is innocent, drops all charges against him. Garibaldi recovers from his injury, Kosh recovers from his poisoning, and the crews sets to repair the breach in the station's hull. Delenn regrets that it was a Minbari who was responsible for Kosh's poisoning. Sinclair confronts G'Kar, whom he now believes to have been connected with the poisoning incident. The plan, Sinclair believes, was that the assassin would have arrived at Babylon 5 on G'Kar's ship, but they missed connections, so the assassin had to find another way in -- namely, on the small ship that discretely breached the ship's hull. The assassin killed Varner and took the changeling net. Sinclair tells G'Kar that he is now implanted with a nanotech location tracker that Sinclair had slipped in G'Kar's drink. G'Kar is furious. Sinclair sternly warns him, "What you do here is your own business. But if you ever endanger this station again, my people will find you, and the results will be most unpleasant." Sinclair later reveals to Garibaldi that there really is no location tracker, but since G'Kar thinks there is, he will keep looking, and looking, and never find it.
Ambassador Kosh, fully recovered, assumes his position as the Vorlon Ambassador on the station. In the station's garden, Sinclair reveals to Delenn what the Minbari assassin had said about the "hole" in Sinclair's mind. Delenn says that is just an old Minbari insult. Sinclair, however, tells her that he had fought in the climactic battle of the Earth-Minbari war, and that there is a twenty-four hour period in the climactic battle, just before the Minbari surrendered, that he can't account for.
Takashima declares Babylon 5 open for business.
[edit] Versions
There are two versions of "The Gathering." The original version was a TV movie aired in 1993 on the Prime Time Entertainment Network as a pilot for the series. After a four-year run on PTEN, Babylon 5 moved to Turner Network Television (TNT) for its fifth and final season in 1998. Series creator and executive producer J. Michael Straczynski supervised a special edition of "The Gathering" which aired on TNT immediately following the new TV movie, Babylon 5: In the Beginning. Scenes were edited to move at a faster pace, allowing the restoration of 14 minutes of footage adding exposition and character development.[1] Among the notable additions is a prophetic line spoken by Kosh when he first meets Sinclair. Lost in the special edition is a trip through the station's alien sector which some viewers felt looked too much like a zoo. The original music, composed by Stewart Copeland, is also replaced with a score by Christopher Franke, who composed music for the rest of the series.
The special edition is included in the Warner Home Video DVD releases Babylon 5: The Gathering/In the Beginning and Babylon 5: The Movie Collection. The original version is available on AOL's In2TV service and through the iTunes Store.
[edit] External links
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