Magic TV: Babylon 5: Sheridan Sacrifices Himself

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

So you’re having a bad day.

Giant spider monsters from the ancient past are looking to take over everything. They have converted human slaves to fool us into agreeing to their cause. You run a space station where all sorts of races coexist in less than, shall we say, harmonious circumstances. Anbassadors with hair like a peacock are secretly in league with the shadowy spiders loto avenge old grudges while reptilian baddies are suddenly looking friendlier than ever but your lovelife is looking up with your half human half Minbari girlfriend. tensions are at an all time high as the Shadows return heralds the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy of a time of great darkness. Oh yeah and to cap it all, your wife comes back from th dead.

Some days you just need an aspirin.

In the epic babylon 5, Commander John Sheridan (played by Bruce Boxleitner) is at a crosroads. The Shadows, the sneaky arachnids that have woken from their ancient sleep and are now ready to take back the galaxy. They will dominate and enslve everyone and everything. Ambassador Londo (peter Jurasik) has made a deal with them but the biggest obstacle in their way is Babylon 5 and its fearless commander, John Sheridan. He and his trusted crew and allies have been thwarting the Shadows at every turn making the likes of Ambassador G’Kar a much needed ally where he was once an irritant and obstacle to peace.

At the end of season three the Shadows tried a new tactic to bring Sheridan over to their side. His beloved wife,Anna, had been lost presumed dead years previous on a mission. However it turns out that Anna and her expedition were taken by th Shadows and converted into pilots for their ships. Now, having discovered who Anna actually is they see the chance to turn the tables. Sheridan will agree whether he does it willingly or not. Anna comes to Babylon 5 claiming they have got it all wrong and in fact the Shadows are a force for good. Reluctantly Sheridan agrees to meet them on the Shadow world of Z’Ha’Dum.

There is a real sense of dread and foreboding through this episode and watching it back, this season cliffhanger stands up there with Star Trek’s Best of Both Worlds. this is epic doing what a good cliffhanger should; leave you speechless and wondering how they are going to get out of that one. This it does in spades because very simply you never see it coming.

Sheridan and D’elenn have declared their love for each other and looking forward to their life together when Anna comes back in in a beautifully directed scene where she appears in shadow and D’elenn drops a snowglobe in shock. Sheridan leaves on his mission without telling her but records a video message for her. G’Kar is having feelings of deep foreboding and the Shadows surround Babylon 5.

On Z’Ha’dum, Sheridan meets a group of humans that argue for the cause of the Shadows hoping to bring him to their side. But Sheridan is prepared for them and the situation quickly deteriorates. Sheridan is forced to run and finds himself on a balcony high above the planet’s surface. Above him is a honeycombed dome. He activates the device on his wrist and his ship’s engines flare as nuclear bombs begin a countdown. It heads towards the planet.

Trapped Ann and a group of Shadow warriros approach. She is nothing like the wife he knew and is brimming with evil intent.

At the same time D’elenn plays the message her lover has left her. As we cut between a trapped Sheridan, the olunging ship and a devastated D’elenn, the tension is palpable. If ever there was a situation where the hero had no way out, it is this. Suddenly Sheridan hears a voice telling him to jump. He does so plunging to certain death. His White Star comes smashing through the dome and explodes as Anna screams. The world is destroyed in the nuclear blast. The Shadows flee from Babylon 5 but Security Chief Michael Garibaldi is taken too.

We leave the season stunned ust like the characters. How could Sheridan survive that fall? Did he do enough damage to the Shadows to stop them? We are left with a monlogue from G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas).

“it was the end of the Earth year 2260 and the war had paused suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us it was as if the universe was holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revalation. This had the feeling f both. G’Quan wrote there is a greater darkness than the one we fight; it is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities; it is against chaos and despair greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope; the death of dreams against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revealtion. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know that it is always born in pain.”

Everything is up in the air now and where it goes next we can only guess but when season four returned with the resolution, it took the character of Shridan in a new direction.

This for me is one of the best episodes of Babylon 5 in the run with a beautifully structured story that squeezes every ounce of excitement and tension out of the viewer. In reality the fate of Sheridan from a lethal situation is actually better than Picard’s assimilation by the Borg because you really don’t know how this one can be resolved. A brillaint cliffhanger and example of scifi televison done right.