[B5JMS] Tonight's Jeremiah (*spoilers*)

[b5jms-admin at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: Jeff Grass <jagrass at facstaff.wisc.edu>
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 19:33:38 -0600
Lines: 138

Brian Osserman wrote:

> Jan <jbonetati at aol.com> wrote:
> >David Chapple wrote:
> ><<Spoiler space
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> ><<I'm glad the death of Captain Iron wasn't the cliched slow motion herioc
> >scene that we've seen(sorry) before.
> >Thanks again JMS>>
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> >Agreed.  Also, this time I was more conscious of the music and it was very
> >appropriate.
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> >In typical JMS fashion, we came to care about Captain Iron and Megan in a short
> >period of time as well as finding out a lot about Erin in the way that she
> >backs up Markus.  I'd like to see more of Megan.  I can see several ways that
> >she could be shown as part of Markus' life though never leaving her isolation
> >room.
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>    Am I the only one who felt that this episode was on the heavy-handed
> side? I still enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was as good as the pilot.
> I think perhaps it was kind of rushed -- I personally didn't find myself
> caring about Captain Iron by the time he died; he simply got too little
> non-buffoonish screen time before it happened. The episode also seemed on the
> predictable side -- within about two minutes of Captain Iron's appearance, I
> had decided he'd be dead by the end, and my first reaction to Megan was "oh,
> an opportunity to find a cure," which kind of reduced the impact of her
> speech way later, not to mention all the politicking in between.
>    A couple more peeves about the episode -- I hope the "Jeremiah finds
> someone who knows something about Valhalla Sector but dies before saying
> anything" doesn't happen every episode, or it will drastically lose its
> impact. Once was good (not to mention extremely believably set up), but this
> time felt far more artificial, particularly in that, as far as I can
> remember being shown, Jeremiah didn't then ask Captain Iron's sister if she
> knew anything that might be helpful. I hope we see some explanation of how
> Captain Iron was connected to Valhalla Sector in the future. Lastly, and
> this is more a pet peeve than a criticism of the episode (given the
> circumstances, I can't really argue with the believability), can't people
> get it through their heads that viruses and bacteria are fundamentally
> different? At the least, if one wants to have the slightest hope of curing
> something, knowing whether it's a virus or bacteria would be kind of
> necessary. IIRC, Markus says the Big Death was caused by one, and Megan says
> it was caused by the other. Oh, and while I'm on the subject, why would they
> dissect her to try to find a cure? As far as I understand of current medical
> technology, it's hard to picture how dissecting a carrier would accomplish
> much, and it would be awfully dangerous to kill your only sample. That added
> to the general feel of heavy-handed artificial drama, which JMS is normally
> so good at avoiding. Oh, and lastly, I don't really see how the solution at
> the end to not tell the council about Megan makes much sense. The whole
> theme of the episode is that keeping secrets from people you trust isn't a
> good idea, and if you simply explain that there's reason to believe the Big
> Death will return regardless, and she's your best chance for a cure, it's
> hard to picture not getting pretty wholehearted support.
>    All of that said, I liked the plot of the episode, I liked Megan, and it
> had some great lines. I was just kind of disappointed with it after the
> pilot, which I liked a lot, and nearly uniformly (except for Kurdy and
> Simon's ex, which kind of made me groan).
>
> >Looking forward to next week.
>
>    Definitely. IIRC, this is the episode that JMS has been singling out as
> indicative of being able to do much more than he ever could have on network
> TV.
>
> Brian

I thought it was about one person making a sacrifice - making a difference -
changing the world. Captain Iron's sacrifice saved his sister and latter encouraged
one of the kids to 'carry on the good fight'. Megan acknowledges that her very
existence is reason enough for everyone to want her dead - I doubt most who are
fearful of dying
of the Big Death would stop to consider that she also potentially holds the cure
for something that may no longer be a threat, unless of course, she continues to
live.
There's nothing more destructive than uncontrolled emotions. If Megan continues to
live, and if the resources to find a cure can be gathered, it sounds like she
thinks she might die in the process.

Dissection in a medical, or even biochemical context, may not mean grabbing a
scalpel and then slicing and dicing. The last thing anyone doing research wants to
do is
destroy their one and only sample. Being a biochemist myself, I never feel
comfortable working with irreplaceable samples, and I always make sure I have
multiple
backups, stored in multiple freezers, of important samples - when possible. There's
no sadder sound in a lab than the 'oh no' uttered when some drops several months of

work all over the floor.

Dissection could mean a variety of things. For instance taking samples of blood,
skin or other bodily fluids such as mucus (aka snot). It could also mean being
subjected to a variety of tests similar to those done to identify allergies. There
are many more techniques that doctors / researchers use to identify the source of
an illness that don't involve killing the patient. Anybody out there ever
participate in medical studies? Some people just don't like the experience.

I wasn't to concerned about the discrepancy about the Big Death being referred to
as a virus and as a bacterium. Some of the characters may not understand the
difference between a virus and a bacterium. Also, the characters may be reiterating
information that they believe is true, but which is in reality, false. Was the
nature
of the infectious agent identified before the Big Death ran it's course? How many
rumors about the nature of the infectious agent were circulating before everything
broke down?

Then again, maybe I'm wrong...

Jeff




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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 18 Mar 2002 03:10:38 GMT
Lines: 15

> Definitely. IIRC, this is the episode that JMS has been singling out as
>> indicative of being able to do much more than he ever could have on network
>> TV.

I believe you're thinking of next week's ep.
 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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