SUMMARY: Dr. Vance Hendricks, a respected archaeologist,
discovers several strange artifacts on a barren planet that provide the secret to organic technology - they are blueprints for living machines.
Helped by his assistant. Nelson Drake, Hendricks smuggles the mysterious relics aboard Babylon 5.
Hendricks hopes to discover the secrets of the objects with the unsuspecting aid of his former student, Dr. Franklin.
Meanwhile, Sinclair and Garibaldi investigate the death of a security clerk. They don't know that Drake murdered the clerk to get the relics aboard Babylon 5 without the required quarantine inspection.
As the scientists experiment on the objects, Drake begins to transform into a cybernetic killer - part human, part machine and attacks Dr. Franklin.
As Franklin recovers, Hendricks confesses the truth to Sinclair and Garibaldi. He illegally smuggled the object into the laboratory hoping to sell the secret to a wealthy Earth-based weapons corporation.
He also explains that Drake was accidentally infected with the cells of the mechanized organisms. As Drake transforms completely into a humanoid machine, he prowls throughout the station, absorbing it's energy and killing anyone he believes to be a threat.
Franklin isolates the genetic code that motivates the cybernetic Drake to kill. Over a thousand years ago, the civilization on the barren planet created artificial soldiers to cleanse their race of genetic impurities. Unfortunately, this desire to create a perfect world was interpreted too literally by these cybernauts and they destroyed all life on the planet.
Sinclair finally confronts the unstoppable Drake with these facts, and Drake's artificial memory destroys itself out of shame for failing in it's mission.

BRASH REFLECTIONS:
Well this episode was fairly good. Not only did we gain a bit more insight into the characters of Sinclair and Franklin, but now that we know what know about Earth, some of the things done in this epiosde make more sense.

I suppose this episode is okay, but not great. It seems more like something that you would have seen in Star Trek. However, the show was trying to find its feet and build the characters up so allowances can be made.

I enjoyed this ep., but thought that Drake's recovery at the end was a cop out. The 'everything's reversible' ploy is already overused in other shows. There was no need to use it here to save a guest actor.

After Sinclair has goaded the alien into effectively committing suicide, it falls with its head facing to the left; when it then transforms back into Nelson, his head is facing to the fight.

In the next scene when Vance and Stephen talk in Medlab, Vance is holding an artefact. Throughout most of the conversation the top of the artefact faces to the right (from Vance’s point of view) but in the very last shot before he puts it down, it’s suddenly facing to the left.

Franklin gives Sinclair a rundown on what happened to Ikara with the living weapons wiping out everything but themselves due to their purity guidelines (oops), right? But he supposedly got this information from the memory of one of those organic artifacts which were sealed in a vault. So... how did the artifact have knowledge of what happened after the weapons were created if it had been sealed away the whole time?

Ruminations:

- when Nelson looks at his hand before he changes, his hand reminds me of the borg right after being injected by Star Trek nanites.

- you get to see a close up of one of Star Trek's workbees in this episode. Of course, it's blue, not yellow
- This episode reminds me of the Voyager episode where Torres repairs that drone.

- The creature reminds me of Megaman or Samus Aran, but with Darth Vader's head.


Show Premises

- Interplanetary Expiditions is relatively unknown by the time of this episode. But will become more visible.


Nits

- How does Vance know that the artifacts are meant to be grafted onto an organism? I don't remember him saying how he knew this.

- One time, during the end fight, the creature looks like it's going to fire on Sinclair, it starts to flash, but no explosion occurs, like it fizzled out

Right after Hendricks opens the case in MedLab in the beginning of the ep, the officers in CnC detect a momentary energy spike. The male officer thinks it was in the area of MedLab, but isn't sure. Doesn't the computer record such things? It appears that they're not able to detect the energy signature's location until the phenomena occurs again.

What exactly was the point of this episode on a thematic, or character level? It seemed to be entirely plot-oriented, and not a very interesting or original plot at that, not much different from any number of sci-fi films and TV episodes, including some not-among-the-best episodes of Trek. Or did this episode exist purely to set up story threads later in the series that were central to its arc? The interaction between Biggs and Hendricks didn't seem particularly revelatory, and I didn't see what the scene between Sinclair and Garibaldi had to do with anything else in the episode.

Only the closing scene of the penultimate Act between Biggs and Ivanova, and the reporter's interview of Sheridan in the final scene, seemed to form any connection between the Ikaran plotline and what's happening on Earth (and by extension, provide something of a thematic commentary), but it seemed a bit of a waste to wade through that whole bit with the Ikaran to get those somewhat unsubtle table scraps.

Many fans (myself included) regard Infection as the weakest episode of the first season. So much so that JMS has acknowledged its badness.

BTW it's Sinclair that was interviewed. Sheridan doesn't show up until the second season.

Whew! Thank God! For a moment there I thought it was just me, and that I wasn't seeing some deep value in this episode that everything one was!

Gordon, do you or anyone else know of any B5 sites that rank, rate, or review episodes in a way that I can peruse so that I know whether an episode is not only not very well regarded like this, but can be skipped without fear that I won't miss an important bit of exposition or setup crucial to the series' unfolding story?

The Lurker's Guide is probably the most useful B5 site I've found. They do rate the episodes, and also include plot synopses, continuity notes, analysis (of varying levels of usefulness) and a record of JMS' comments on the episode. There may be others, but that's the main one I've used.

Welcome to B5, Luigi.