“Voices Of Authority” (season three, episode five; originally aired 1/29/1996)
“Voices Of Authority” is fun. This is not commonly a term that can be ascribed to Babylon 5. Sure, the show's had fun moments, and it's has aimed to be fun, or funny, on several occasions. But for this hour of television, Babylon 5 becomes fun as a whole. The main characters, writing, premise, serialization, and guest stars all work together to make this episode an unexpected treat. I don't want to oversell “Voices Of Authority” as it's not one of the all-time great episodes. It's more the kind of strong buildup episode that great series need, and as such, the clearest sign of just how good the third season is going to be.
The oddest thing about the episode is how disjointed it is. There's no real main plot to it—it's a series of interconnected stories, all of which are derived directly from the serialized story. In a sense it's a serialization of the week episode. A “Political Officer” named Julia Musante arrives on the station, in order to “help” Sheridan avoid the embarrassing mistakes he's made recently. She also authorizes the Night Watch to escalate their anti-sedition activities, and continues to apply pressure to Zack Allen to engage more fully with the Night Watch, which strains his relationship with Garibaldi. Garibaldi has been hiding the secret War Council meetings, which in this case, are being called because Delenn believes it's time to contact the First Ones as allies against the Shadows. This causes Draal to reappear and invite our heroes to the Great Machine. Ivanova goes down and discovers some First Ones, which she and Marcus head off to contact. Along the way, she also finds video evidence of President Clarke ordering the assassination of President Santiago. The release of that evidence causes the Julia Musante to leave the station. None of these are the main plot, but all are important, and all interconnect. We often give JMS credit for his construction of the overarching plot to Babylon 5, but “Voices Of Authority” is a fine example of how he can construct an episode out of nothing.
The Political Officer is probably the most memorable part of the episode. Musante, as played by Shari Shattuck, is some horrifying combination of true believer and utter cynic. She seems to believe everything she says, even, perhaps especially, when she's saying she doesn't believe everything she says. Sheridan asks when they turned Earth into a utopia, and she answers “When we rewrote the dictionary.” Then she tries to seduce Sheridan as directly as possible, and turns around and drops the most explicitly fascist rhetoric that the show has used. The more often that I watch “Voices Of Authority” the more I respect the character's portrayal. Perhaps it's the cynicism of age, but I find Musante less and less cartoonish. I've known people like her, who only exist to serve power and manage to convince themselves and others that they're doing something more. So where I used to believe her sexually aggressive move on Sheridan was over-the-top, now it seems to be part-and-parcel of her constantly-shiftting personality. And the glee with which Shattuck plays her is a critical part of the fun of the episode.
A second important aspect of “Voices'” fun is Marcus Cole. The angsty seriousness of the season premiere is gone, and the playful smartass that defines the character is now his dominant mode. He and Ivanova head off on a quest for the First Ones who nearly killed Catherine Sakai at Sigma 957 way back in the first season. Taken literally, as a story where Ivonova manipulates ancient near-gods into joining her war effort via toddler psychology is fairly painful. Taken less literally, as an amusing side quest intended to reveal a little bit more about these two characters and how they interact as well as what they believe about the upcoming Great War. For that to work, it's absolutely critical that Jason Carter as Marcus can hold his own with the banter. He can; he manages to transcend JMS' oft-clunky comedic dialogue. Saying he's going to put a bucket on his head to portray a Vorlon god is clunky, yes, but his murmured “I'll go get a bucket” after Ivanova responds with “That's it!” is exactly the sort of fast-paced banter that's been missing from Babyon 5 other than occasional moments from Londo, Ivanova, and Garibaldi.
There's a lot more to like here—Draal's scenery chewing is as welcome as ever (“It will be…fun. Assuming you're not vaporized, dissected, or killed in an assortment of various painful ways. Exciting, isn't it!”) and the Night Watch story has perhaps the most emotional resonance it's hard yet, thanks to Jeff Conaway's fairly incompetent struggles between his multiple bosses. It's over-the-top, especially when he manages to squint only one eye in order to indicate tension, but the idea that Zack is not terribly smart, that he literally doesn't know how to respond in situations like this, gives the whole story more power.
If there's a weakness to “Voices Of Authority” it's in the major plot revelation, that Clark was indeed behind Santiago's assassination (and that Morden helped him do it). This is put in the background by the characters—Ivanova says that she can't tell Sheridan what it is, but she'll show it to him, and Sheridan just passes it along to let his superiors in the counter-coup faction who release it into the world. It doesn't feel like a major new step in the process, just a minor instigator toward whatever's supposed to happen next. But that's fairly minor. “Voices Of Authority” is a busy episode built around what's happened in the past and what will happen in the future. The assassination video isn't necessarily good now, but it is an effective promise that things will change in the future, just as the episode promises that the serialization promised throughout the show so far will be redeemed, and soon.
Grade: A-
Stray observations: