Definately a great bookend episode. It complimented Midnight On The Firing Line quite well.
I can think of only other show to do a truly succesful bookend. Mad About You began and ended it's first season with Paul and Jamie ending up having sex on the kitchen table. Seeing as THAT show is on it's final year as well as B5, maybe it'll happen again.

I, too, thought that this was a great season ender. After having followed this show from the beginning and watching (and taping) it from beginning to end, I have to say that I did not care for the first season very much. At first I liked Sinclair, but having watched those episodes again, I don't like him as well as I like Sheridan. No offence to Michael O'hare, but I think Bruce Boxleitner did a better job from the beginning. O'hare did manage to grow into his role, and I am certain that if he had been on longer, he would have been great.

This episode was great because it had a lot of things going on that tied together really well even if we didn't know it yet. Strazynski is VERY good at foreshadowing and you really have to pay attention and rewatch episodes over and over again to get everything.

Great episode, excellent series.

So can we still post? If this episode is any indication, B5 with Sinclair could've been one of the best shows on TV ever. He really adds a lot

I have to agree that Michael O'Hare brought a certain thoughtfulness, a certain cerebral-ness, if you will, that Bruce Boxleitner lacked. Sinclair struck me as more of a diplomat than a military man, someone who had led people into battle. Then again, maybe that was the point: that the hole in Sinclair's mind changed him drastically.

It would have proved interesting to see how the series would have developed with Sinclair as station commander, rather than Sheridan. Question: was O'Hare's departure his idea, or JMS's?

And if O'Hare had stayed, how would the series have wrapped up? Did JMS plan for the plotline in War Without End to be the season 5 finale? I guess that if Sinclair hadn't left the station, he and Delenn would have become a couple and the final episode would have ended with Sinclair going back in time to become Valen and leaving a grieving Delenn in the present.

As far as whose idea it was for O'Hare to leave, I wonder if anyone knows. Certainly JMS was very cagey about it and very carefully never said!

I seriously doubt that Sinclair and Delenn would have become a couple(although it is possible), but you might be right about where the story would have ended if Sinclair had remained prominent in the story instead of being replaced by Sheridan.

Based on what JMS has said on the net, Sinclair was always gonna go back and be Valen at the midway point of the series. He would have introduced a character in Sheridan's mold around the same time and follow through with what eventually happened. Had Sinclair stayed after season 1 the only difference would've been a slighty different Season 2 and Season 3.

Was it my imagination, or were they very careful not to show Morden's profile in this episode?

Chris Frankes music complements this episode beautifully. The music that is played when the visual shot of Earth Force one appears and the Command crew are in vain trying to contact Io is awesome, then that shot as EF 1's wreckd hull tumbles while the news crew react with horror.

JMS has also said that idea to leave was one that both he and Michael O'Hare agreed on, so that answers that wee enquiry...

And if O'Hare had stayed, how would the series have wrapped up? Did JMS plan for the plotline in War Without End to be the season 5 finale? I guess that if Sinclair hadn't left the station, he and Delenn would have become a couple and the final episode would have ended with Sinclair going back in time to become Valen and leaving a grieving Delenn in the present.

If you'll recall Valen's backstory is that he disappeared an no Mimbari knows what happened to him. They've also talked about his prophicied (sp) return. I figured taht War Without End would have ended with Sinclair returning 20 years older and that was why he was so old in Babylon Squared, even though I don't know how his Mimbari apperance fits into everything.

Nit

The woman Sinclair was talking to about the president's ship being destroyed said there was no evidence to suggest it was anything but an accident. However, there was plenty of evidence.

- the jamming of all communications except ISN.
- the jamming equipment that never made it out (set up to jam that location)
- the PPG with no IN number period
- Petrov's death (what started the B5 accident)
- Garibaldi being shot
- Security Records from B5 indicating Devro, Devro's shipment etc.


The only way for it not to be is that she must also be a part of the conspiracy.

More Nits

Delenn's chrysalis in the wide shot shows no holes to see her face, but in the close up, it does.

Ruminations

The sound that Kosh makes when he leaves his encounter suit for Delenn matches the sound of a wing flap... the same thing that you hear when Kosh saves Sheridan later in the series.