Contents: Overview - Plot Points - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

The telepath war. Walter Koenig as Bester. Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander

Sub-genre: Action/intrigue
P5 Rating: <3.62

Production number: 514a
Original air date: May 13, 1998

Written by ???
Directed by ???

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Plot Points

• Telepaths communicate orally as a courtesy(!) to mundanes. When engaged in a battle to the death, oral communication is an unnecessary triviality.

• Bester conducted so many ‘death watches’ that enough of him is beyond the portal that he is able to effectively communicate with the dead and call upon their resources.

• Joined P-12 telepaths in hyperspace are able to project their effects into normal space at astronomic (literally) distances.

• The virus developed by Edgars was a retro-rhino virus that undoes the genetic manipulation performed by the Vorlons. It spreads either air-borne or through direct contact, is constantly mutating, and recodes the victim’s DNA to remove the gene for telepathy.

• Ethel alcohol protects a potential victim’s brain from telepathic manipulation. But to be effective it must be taken in quantities sufficient to render the victim incapable of coherent action.

• Lyta does not need to be in hyperspace to project over astronomic distances (”Epiphanies”).

Questions

• What was going on in this episode? Most of the action took place in a single room where Bester and other Psy-Cops sat and looked at each other. Occasionally someone would chug a bottle of what looked like Afterburner™ whiskey.

• Were the Psy-Cops who slumped in their chairs dead or did they just fall asleep from boredom?

• Is this the last that we’ll ever hear of telepaths?

• Now that Lyta has avenged Byron, will she at least give Zack a sniff?

• What will become of the drunk Psy-Cops?

Analysis

• Telepath wars are Boorriing!

• Bester has been planning for the moment of his death for a long time. He has explored the unexplored country. He seems to treat the “place” beyond the portal as analogous to hyperspace, that is, as space is to hyperspace, so life is to death. Has he built a ‘jumpgate’?

• The violent telepaths seem to have also been the more powerful ones. Perhaps the Vorlon manipulation includes this antisocial streak to make telepaths more isolated and easier to manipulate. On the other hand, it may just be an unavoidable by-product of telepathy.

• The entire telepath war seems to have taken two days (though it seemed like two weeks to me as I was watching it.) Mundanes are completely unaware that it has occurred, what the outcome was, and how they are being and will be affected.

• Garibaldi will have to go to hell if he wants to exact further revenge on Bester.

Notes

• Psy-Corps headquaters is hidden in a pocket in hyperspace. Other high priority security and armed forces assets are similarly hidden.

JMS Speaks

• We’ve just finished spisode 514a. This is a very unusual episode. I’m always trying to stretch my muscles as writer but this time I may have sprained something.

• This episode was shot in just two days. It has very little CGI and no speaking parts. It really helped us to bring the fifth season in under budget and this was a major consideration in TNT’s decision to pick up “Crusades.” So don’t complain!

• Chris has done a wonderful job with the music. We had to convey all of the sense of action through music and very tight close-ups of the small muscles around Walter Koenig’s eyes. The music really helps to bring out the fast-paced action that is occurring, even though, as viewers, we don’t see anything “happening.” I’m really quite pleased.

• Is Bester dead?

Is the Pope Catholic? Define “Catholic” and I’ll define “dead.” …but he’s not going to be showing up at B5 with his Starfury anymore.

• TNT isn’t going to show this episode!!!!!!!!!!

Because it would show in the middle of the NBA playoffs and because our test screenings showed extremely limited audience interest we have decided to cancel the premier showing.

• Will this episode be part of the season 5 reruns?

Well, it’s pretty much a stand-alone episode. We could include it or not. I’ve added a single line of voice-over to the next episode’s intro that completely sums up this episode. So it’s not necessary for continuity.

• Was this whole telepath arc necessary? It strikes me as tele-pathetic television!

Count to 10 backwards in Minbari….

You know it really honks me off that people think that just because they watch the show, they OWN the show. This is MY show. I conceived the idea. I wrote it. I produced it. I sweated blood over it. I lost hair over it. 10 years of my life. And you nit-pick and whine. If you don’t like it, don’t waste your time --- go watch all that other “quality” programming.

Sorry…. I’ll be OK in a minute. You know, this is not some crummy, half-hour, action-adventure series, where everything has to get us tightly focused onto the final 30 second car chase. This is a five year story. Every once in a while we can take a deep breath, stretch the kinks out of our back, and just kick back and enjoy.

• Given the poor audience reaction, will we be seeing any episodes done in a similar style in “Crusades?”

Ah likes that sorta thing … dropping a whole new art form on my audience and seeing what oozes out from under the rock.

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"The spoilers page pisses me off..."

- JMS on Usenet, 10-2-97

Thoughts in Dim Places

Last Modified: Thu Apr 16, 1998

A dim room. Camera up near the ceiling, at the juncture of the ceiling and one of the walls.

Bester is seated at the middle of the rear wall. Other Psy-Cops are are seated in semi-circles four deep facing him. The camera tracks down, keeping Bester centered, until we are behind the last row of the semi-circle, looking down a canyon of heads; Bester framed in the center.

Slowly the camera moves in. Suddenly we become aware that what originally looked like a still life is actually a scene of intense activity. It’s just that none of the activity is physical. Bester’s eyes are constantly moving, making eye contact with his subordinates…sharing thoughts…adding support…comforting and strengthening. The music is gradually swelling and modulates from a minor to a major key.

Suddenly, one of the Psy-Cops slumps. Bester’s eyes dart frantically. Pan in to an extreme close-up of the muscle on the outside corner of Bester’s right eyebrow. It twitches, the music reaches a crescendo, a pause, a Bester slumps a little. He’s tired, but it’s a good tired.

…………………………………………………….

A quick shot of a Psy-Corps mothership in hyperspace. The hyperspace is distorted to give the feeling that this is a ‘pocket’ in hyperspace.

Cut back to the room. Shot of the far wall, a door in it, over Bester’s right shoulder. A flunky comes in pushing a food service cart with lots of bottles on it. Music is a lot of fast violins, rising and falling in doubled triplets, with French Horns carrying the melody. The flunky goes through the rows, placing two of the bottles in each Psy-Cops lap. As he goes down the row nearest Bester we can see that he is distributing two quarts of Afterburner™ whiskey (Mr. Garibaldi’s favorite) to each Psy-Cop. The Psy-Cops keep their eyes locked on Bester, not even blinking. The flunky does not approach Bester. He finishes and leaves.

…………………………………………………….

Lyta is sitting in a circle of rogue telepaths. They are holding hands. The background is dark, almost black. The telepaths are all wearing black. Visually, a set of white faces, floating in the void. The camera slowly tracks in on the pupil of Lyta’s right eye. It is black as the pits of Hell. Peripherally, we can see the occasional telepath slump. The people on either side of them quickly drop their hands, scoot forward, and take the hand of their new partner…closing ranks over the body of their fallen comrade. The fallen telepaths…we see their body but we also see their psyche depart via a tunnel of light through the portal. The tunnel of light looks somehow like a jump gate. The camera finally tracks in to where Lyta’s pupil fills the whole shot and we mix throught to… The dim room with Bester and the Psy-Cops. At the same speed as the previous scene, the camera tracks in on Bester’s right pupil. Peripherally we see Psy-Cops slumping and departing via tunnels of light (except these tunnels have a redder hue to them). Occasionally, one of the Psy-Cops will break eye contact with Bester and begin chugging whiskey. We finally reach Bester’s pupil and mix through to…

Lyta and friends. The circle is smaller now but otherwise as the same. Tracking in slowly and…

Back and forth between Lyta and Bester, three times each. The music is “Das Valkuries” in a minor key, swelling as we reach the pupil and then falling as we mix throught.

The last time that we mix through to Lyta, she is sitting knee-to-knee with only two other telepaths. The dead telepaths fan out around them like spokes to a hub. We mix through to Bester and he is alone. All the other Psy-Cops are dead or drunk. Without Bester’s body slumping, we see his psyche get up and open a tunnel of light. The psyche goes to the portal, but does not step through. The psyche reaches out a hand, tentatively, to the portal, and a mirror hand comes to the other side of the portal. Then the owner of the mirror hand comes into view on the other side of the portal and its….Bester! They join hands and the psyche reaches out to where Bester’s body sits, only the muscles around the eyes twitching. Bester is drawing power from beyond the grave!!!!

Cut to Lyta. She and the other two telepaths are struggling, visibly trembling. Exhausted (the music will convey this), they lean forward, resting on each other’s foreheads. Eye-to-eye-to-eye-to-eye-to-eye-to-eye, they reach deeper into each other’s souls, drawing on unguessed at furnaces of passion.

Cut quickly back to Bester. The psyche is troubled. The hand stretched out to Bester’s body wavers and droops. He brings the hand round to join up with the mirror’s other hand but when the two hands meet they don’t touch…instead they are passing into each other. The two Bester’s sort of fall into each other leaving nothing.

Back to Lyta…she and the two other telepaths have lost themselves in contemplating each other. They have gazed so deeply, so strongly, into each other that their sense of self has become lost or stunned. Slowly they begin to disentangle themselves as the ending credit roll up.

…………………………………………………….

As always, my intention is parody and humor. I do not wish to give offense to the Lurker’s Guide, the Spoiler’s Page, TNT, WB, JMS, or to any other entity that is mentioned, either implicitly or explicitly in this writing. I hope that this statement is sufficiently groveling enough that I don’t get sued.

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