Deathwalker

Written by Lawrence G. DiTillio
Directed by Bruce Seth Green

Synopsis

Na’Toth beats up a seemingly innocent visitor to Babylon 5  - almost killing her. It turns out that visitor is Jha’Dur – otherwise known as ‘Deathwalker’ – last of the Dilgar and a notorious war criminal. She has developed a serum that will allow anyone to live for ever, and is selling it to the highest bidder. After much political manoeuvring, Sinclair makes an agreement that Earth will work with her to develop the serum and afterwards she will be handed over to the League of Non-Aligned Worlds for trail. As she leaves the station Jha’Dur reveals that each does of serum will make one person immortal – but another must die to provide a key ingredient. As she leaves the station, a Vorlon ship arrives, destroying her ship. Kosh tells Sinclair that ‘you are not ready.’

Meanwhile Talia Winters sits in on a negotiation between Kosh and a strange man called ‘Abbut’, who it turns out is a ViCaR – a cyborg who can record anything, including thoughts and feelings. Kosh tells Talia that the recording contains ‘Reflection, surprise, terror…for the future’

What We Learned and What Was Lost

• The Dilgar are a race who created terrible weapons and sold them on the open market. They are now extinct from a war with the Non-Aligned Worlds, who were aided by EA.
• We start to learn that the Vorlon are prepared to interfere in the business of other races. They also have a distrust of telepaths (later events seem to indicate that they specifically have a distrust of telepaths they have no control over)
• The recording Kosh takes from Talia is mentioned by Garibaldi in ‘Divided Loyalties’, but nothing really comes of it.
• First mention of the Vorlon saying ‘Understanding is 3-edged sword’, which is elaborated in later episodes.
• I’m not certain, but I think this is the first mention of the Drazi by name? Certainly they are to become the League member race which we find the most out about.
• We finally start to see the first signs of Ivanova’s wonderfully black sense of humour: ‘Vakar Ashok, our gun arrays are now fixed on your ship. They will fire the instant you come into range. You will find their power most impressive – for a few seconds.’

Cast and Performances

• Jha’Dur is, of course, played by fan-favourite Sarah Douglas, best known for her role as Ursa in Superman II, but who has been a mainstay in genre television for many years (including several Big Finish Doctor Who audios.) To be honest, she doesn’t make a huge impact here – rather than being arch and menacing she isn’t really given a lot to work with. And it has to be admitted that her prosthetics are not Optic Nerve’s best work.
• Kalika, the Abbai ambassador is played by Robin Curtis, best known to sf fans as the far-inferior-replacement-for-Kirstie-Alley in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. She is actually fine here.

Stuff that Went ‘clunk’

• The legal system around ambassadors continues to be very confused. Na’Toth beats an apparently innocent arrival almost to death and she just gets house arrest?
• Garibaldi tells Sinclair that the Council Room is ‘secure’. Yet it seems to have two completely open exits on either side. I can only assume that there are some unseen doors around the corner.
• Not the fault of the show-makers, but it’s difficult not to be slightly amused by the fact that the term ViCaR, for a human recording machine, is named after a piece of technology that will probably already needed to be explained to anyone under 15 years old!

‘Back to Acting School for You‘ award: Jerry Doyle’s delivery of some of his dialogue is a bit ropey in this episode. There’s no doubt that Doyle improves as the seasons go on, but early on in the run he is very uneven. Perhaps at this point he is very dependent on the director?

Then and Now

‘Deathwalker’ is a bit of a mixed bag. It has an interesting central idea – and is the first in a number of Babylon 5 episodes to take a difficult moral dilemma and run with it. However, unlike other episodes (see the next episode, ‘Believers’, for example) it fails to stick the landing. The destruction of Jha’Dur’s ship by the Vorlons just feels like a cop-out.

On the other hand, one of the themes of this episode is that the Vorlons are far more interested in what is going on around them than their apparent indifference indicates. You should, at this point, be starting to ask why the Vorlons think they have the right to interfere in other races’ development. It’s maybe also an episode that the viewers should think back to when the Vorlons appear to be set up as the ‘good guys’ in seasons 2 & 3. In particular, I feel that people forget how shocking Talia’s violation by Kosh and Abbut is here (something that sadly seems to have been forgotten by the show-runners, particularly given Talia’s later exit from the show.)