Choose a methodological approach to provide an analysis of Star Trek (you may choose a single text, i.e programme, one of its series or the phenomena as a whole), Twin Peaks, Buffy and/or Angel. You will need to consider your choice as a text within the construct of television.

With the lecturer's permission, I have substituted Babylon 5 as the text to be examined.

By L. J. M. L.

Episode synopsis: “Z’ha’dum”.

The episode opens on a sober note, with Delenn looking into a snow globe as John Sheridan sleeps. The door to Sheridan’s quarters opens, and there is Anna Sheridan, John’s wife, the woman who was  thought to be deceased. She confronts Delenn and Sheridan. Delenn leaves, Anna tries to touch Sheridan who backs away. She offers to take any test he wants her to, to prove she really is who she says. In Medlab, Dr. Franklin tells Sheridan that every piece of equipment he has says that it is indeed Sheridan’s wife. Leaving Anna in the care of Franklin, who wants to run a few more tests, Sheridan goes to find Delenn and ask if it really is Anna.

Meanwhile, G’Kar has delivered thirty thermo nuclear bombs to Ivanova. They intend to use them against the Shadows. Sheridan has a meeting with Garibaldi, asking him to take care of a few things for him. Garibaldi is shocked, but does as he is asked. Sheridan confronts Anna after he has recorded a message for Delenn. Anna invites him to Z’ha’dum. He agrees, only after she explains to him what happened when the ship she was aboard first landed on the planet five years previously. G’kar tells Ivanova that two of the bombs are missing.

Delenn is distraught. She receives the time delay message as Sheridan and Anna are heading towards Z’ha’dum. The montage shows the message being played, of Sheridan lovingly telling her that he has to go to Z’ha’dum, that he loves her. On Z’ha’dum, Anna escorts Sheridan to a part of the Shadow complex built for her and the other human residents on the planet. There, he meets Justin (the man in-between) and Mr. Morden. They tell him what the Shadows goals and objectives are and what the Vorlons goals and objectives are.

Shadows enter the room as Sheridan reveals he knows that Anna has been used as the central core of a Shadow vessel. He shoots them, and the next scene is of him climbing up a rocky wall and heading towards a balcony. As Anna, flanked by two Shadows, walks slowly towards him, offering her hand, Sheridan programs the White Star, the ship that he flew to Z’ha’dum, to plunge into the planet. He hears Kosh’s voice in his head, telling him to jump. As the ship crashes into the planet, with two thermo nuclear weapons armed and ready, Sheridan jumps into an abyss.

At Babylon 5, the station is surrounded by Shadow vessels. At the time Sheridan jumps into the abyss, the Shadow vessels disappear…taking Garibaldi’s star fury with them. The episode ends with G’Kar’s monologue and the image of a destroyed city on Z’ha’dum, giving the viewer the impression that Sheridan has died.

Introduction.

“A myth is a fabricated, invented or imagined story of ostensibly historical events in which universal struggles concerning Truth, Beauty and Patriotism are depicted. In an almost sacred or timeless order (ritual or dream), a hero or heroine embarks upon a long, unknown, and difficult journey in order to retrieve a ‘precious object’, which is guarded by unusually powerful counteragents. In the process of completing the quest, the hero or heroine displays superhuman powers thereby creating a myth, fantasy, illusion, or vision.” [1]

Such is the description of the role of what is described as the mythic, or cult television show. Babylon 5, with its central character from Season Two onwards, of Captain John J. Sheridan, fits perfectly into this analogy.  He undergoes the four dramatic stages of Pollution, Guilt, Purification and Redemption. In the episode “Z’ha’dum”, his role as the central character within the show becomes clear and well defined.

The Mythical Communication Drama: Cult Television.

Within popular television series of the dramatic kind, the central character generally possesses qualities of intellect, likeability, humour, compassion, love, anger, and emotiveness.  The show revolves around that character; the goings on and the role of that character within the construct of the text are central to the cohesive nature of the text and the ongoing storyline.

Such shows as The Prisoner, Blake’s 7, Quantum Leap, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel: The Series, Star Trek, et al, all possess such central characters. Whether these characters are the captain of a space ship or space station, a scientist, the Slayer, a Vampire with a soul or a government agent, the show is centered around them. The universe created by the text’s author is one that moves forwards or backwards because of them. Take away the central character and the whole of the show is diminished and changed.

This is the case with Babylon 5. Captain Sheridan first appears as soldier with little in the way of character development to back this up. As the show progresses, the viewer discovers there is more to this officer than meets the eye. In “Z’ha’dum”, the pivotal role he plays is revealed and brilliantly described in the scene in the Shadow’s underground city where he takes tea with his wife, Mr. Morden and one Justin.

The tea scene is particularly important I feel because it places an incredibly tense situation, in an atmosphere that the viewer relates with home and comfort. It places Sheridan in the thick of enemy territory, where the simple matter of drinking tea is made horrific by its location. We know Sheridan is in the centre of Z’ha’dum. We know that if Sheridan goes there, he will die. It has been preordained by Ambassador Kosh. We know that somewhere, Shadows are bound to be lurking and the act of drinking tea sets the scene for the finest fifteen minutes of the entire episode.

When Sheridan asks ‘why not kill me?’ he gets the answer that reveals him as the catalyst for the entire show. “You’re important. You’re what they call a Nexus. You turn one way and the whole world has a tendency to go the same way,”[2] says Justin.  This is used to show that Sheridan is a focal point, causing tremendous change to those around him and the galaxy as a whole.

So let us examine the four dramatic stages of the episode with the character of Captain Sheridan as the central methodology.

Pollution.

“Universal problems beyond human control – unreasonable, overwhelming, and often religious/ideological – set off the drama.”[3]

The universal problems faced by Sheridan in “Z’ha’dum” are problems of intergalactic war between two ancient forces older than anything currently living in the galaxy, with the younger races – humans included – caught in between. He faces the knowledge, garnered from an earlier episode that the fall of the planet of Centauri Prime may be due to his going or not going to Z’ha’dum. He is confronted by his wife Anna, seemingly returned from the dead, who insists upon his going to the planet to hear what the confrontation is all about.

Sheridan is placed in the centre of an ongoing conflict that has been raging for thousands of years. He is described by Justin as a nexus once he reaches Z’ha’dum, but it is clear from the direction of the episode that he does not want to go. He does not want to die, in his message to Delenn; Sheridan states, “What I want is to stay alive -- to be with you. But this is about more than what I want. So I'm going -- even though I know it's almost certainly a trap.”[4]

Sheridan also has part of the deceased Vorlon ambassador, Kosh, inside him. From what little we know of the Vorlons, they are able to separate pieces of themselves and co-inhabit with other life forms, similar to parasitic organisms. Sheridan can hear Kosh from time to time, advising him, warning him, “If you go to Z’ha’dum you will die,”[5] and yet Sheridan goes to Z’ha’dum fully aware that this is the fate that awaits him, but determined that to do so will in some way help prevent the destruction of other worlds and bring about the end of the Shadow War.

There is often the sense of inevitability from a lead character going off to sacrifice himself for what he perceives as the greater good. It is a plot device that is reasonably popular in Cult Television; in “Quantum Leap”, Sam sacrifices himself to continue to leap to save Al and the present. In “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” Sisko sacrifices himself. In “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”, Buffy sacrifices herself to save her sister and the world.

The cliff-hanger device wherein one character sacrifices themselves for the greater good, be it an ideal, a person, the world, the universe, etc, is also explained rather neatly by J. Michael Strazcynski in an interview with him regarding the episode “Z’ha’dum.”

“Why a cliff-hanger, if WB is likely to delay the final episode until the start of season four?
Because the story calls for it. Whether they show the cliffhanger three months or two weeks before the fourth season (assuming renewal), this is where the story goes. It was constructed like a series of novels, a multi-volume saga, and like any good series of novels, you end on something big.” [6]

Guilt

“Blame cannot be attached to any particular and individual agent – forces are to fault.”[7]

This is a particularly interesting statement to apply to the deconstruction of this particular episode of “Babylon 5”. There is no clear-cut sense of good and evil, right or wrong. Who is to blame? What forces are at fault?  What motivates Sheridan to choose the course of action he takes?

Previous episodes of the show, particularly “War Without End parts 1 and 2”; give Sheridan brief flashes of the future. His course of action is motivated – primarily – by what he sees in these flashes – that of a world destroyed and decayed because of the Shadows. In the flash, Delenn tells him NOT to go to Z’ha’dum. As he ponders this advice, he decides that what he saw may very well have been BECAUSE he listened to her advice and did NOT go to Z’ha’dum. This is his justification for going, in order to try and prevent the destruction of Centauri Prime as much as to end the war.

There are titanic forces at work in this episode of “Babylon 5”, the Vorlons and the Shadows are First Ones; that is, they are the first races to have lived and evolved in the galaxy. There are other First Ones, but we do not find out who those races are. The Vorlons stand for order and obedience. They are described as being similar to parents – they want the other races to play nice and do what they are told in order to promote development through obedience and what is essentially manipulation.

The Shadows, however, stand for conflict and evolution. They believe in starting wars to promote conflict and growth, promoting evolutionary growth through the necessities of conflict with other races. Up until this point in the series, the viewer always had the sense that the Vorlons stood for all that was good and right and that the Shadows stood for all that was evil and wrong.

If we take this as the main driving force of the episode, the focus switches from Sheridan as the catalyst to two titanic and ancient forces fighting a war of ideology. The viewer is presented with the rather uncomfortable realisation that perhaps those who they perceived as evil – the Shadows – are in fact, not evil at all, as their own intrinsic beliefs are reflected by the Shadows. The same works for the Vorlons – are they the ‘good guys’ as we have been led to believe previously? Or, since their modus operandi is one that may be in direct conflict with what the viewer believes, are they actually evil?

The line between right and wrong and good and evil is blurred and now the viewer is in the rather uncomfortable position of determining whether or not their world view is that of a force that has been presented as being intrinsically evil or intrinsically good. It is a difficult adjustment to make. As a viewer, the first time I watched this episode, I found it profoundly uncomfortable. Previous to “Z’ha’dum”, I would have described myself as a Vorlon sympathiser. With the truth of what each race believes revealed, I found myself facing the rather undeniable fact that my own belief system was in fact that of the Shadows. As a viewer, it is a difficult adjustment to make. The focus is shifted from individuals to concepts, forces that are at work behind the scenes of the individual characters.

So are forces to fault in this episode? Yes and no. Forces manipulate characters into doing things that they otherwise may or may not do. Sheridan states quite clearly that he is derisive about the Shadows motivations “So that’s what the Shadows do – they come out of hiding every thousand years and kick down all the anthills?”[8] He uses an analogy that basically breaks the Shadows motivations down into that of a common school bully. Morden describes the Vorlons as “your parents. They want you to behave and do as you are told.”[9]

I think this is best summed up in the following quote:

“The Shadows have been the baddies, and now we’ll find out that Sheridan has been deceived all along; we’ve all been deceived. The big power brokers in the universe are the Vorlons, and they’re not necessarily the saviours of mankind. They’re much more the manipulators, and the fans will start to see their agenda and the Shadows’ agenda and how we deal with them.”[10]

In the case of Sheridan, who seems to be somewhat removed from the motivations of these forces, he acts on his own interpretation of the situation. As far as he is concerned, the Shadows are a clear and present danger and he does what he can to eliminate that danger. When he jumps into the abyss, it is at the urging of the piece of Kosh still inside him.

Straczynski describes Sheridan’s jump thusly:

“In that sense, as someone else once pointed out, Sheridan is a hero in the Heinleinian tradition. He does the logical thing, whatever that is, to survive. "Okay, I'm about to get vaporized...but if that hole is several miles deep, it might shield me and keep me alive for another 10 seconds. Yes, there's the *splat* at the end problem, but I'll have 10 seconds in which to figure out that problem...."”[11]

The urge to survive transcends any higher forces at work as far as Sheridan is concerned. Survival for himself, for the people he loves, for the other worlds he is fighting to save.

Purification.

“Superhuman powers of the central character emerge during the corrective process.”[12]

This brings me back to Sheridan as a nexus. He is the main focus of both the Shadows and the Vorlons. When Kosh first teaches Sheridan how to find the Shadows, he does so with a series of lessons designed to help Sheridan understand himself. When the Vorlons finally do enter the war, it is at Sheridan’s insistence. The Shadows know Sheridan’s worth to the cause, and are trying desperately to get him to work for them.

There is a lot of coercive dialogue directed at Sheridan from Justin, Anna and Morden. They say that whenever this starts, every thousand years, there is always someone who comes along and tries to unite the other races. Until Sheridan, no one had been able to achieve that end. However, as Morden states “"there's always someone who tries to organize the other races. You've done it. That's a commendable achievement, but as far as our goals are concerned, unproductive."” [13]

Sheridan is clearly unimpressed. He suggests that they kill him, remove him from the war. Justin says that this would not work, it would turn Sheridan into a martyr and someone else would come along and take his place. By his death, Sheridan would solidify the unification of the other worlds that would see his death as a message to fight the Shadows as a unified force. This would be counter productive to the goals and aims of the Shadows, namely being promoting growth through conflict between the worlds, not unification.

Sheridan as a nexus puts him in the position of being almost superhuman. In a parallel with Buffy Sommers, in episode 522, “The Gift,” where she dies to save the world, she becomes superhuman herself, her sacrifice stops other dimensions opening and folding in on each other. To close such a force requires an enormous amount of something ‘otherworldly’, something that cannot be defined by the traditional definition of a human being.

Sheridan, likewise, sacrifices himself to stop a war and save worlds, with his actions becoming superhuman. He does not possess superhuman strength, speed or powers, but the courage of his actions lend him an element of superhumanity, a sense of BEING MORE than the sum of his parts, and elevate him to the status of superhero to those who follow him.

He knows that by jumping into the abyss as the White Star plunges towards the planet can mean death. But perhaps there is a way out? Perhaps he can somehow survive seemingly insurmountable odds and live. To remain on Z’ha’dum and do nothing as the city explodes does not present any way of transcending himself and becoming more than he is. While this is not his motivation for jumping so much as the need to survive motivates him, this action does elevate him beyond the status of mere mortal to hero and superhuman.

Redemption.

“A new social system is established due to unique powers of the central character.”[14]

Because of his death by jumping into the abyss, Sheridan is elevated to the status of more than just a figurehead for the war against the Shadows. Everyone believes he is dead – except for Delenn, who believes that he will survive, somehow, despite the impossible odds stacked against him. The other worlds involved in the fight against the Shadows realise that Sheridan has done the impossible, and begin to feel that he has guaranteed their safety by his death.

The new order that comes about due to his sacrifice, which is unique to him, for no other character on the show, with possibly the exception of Delenn and G’Kar display so much selflessness, is one of the many worlds feeling that they are now invincible and had defeated the Shadows. They all take security and hope from the fact that they have done nothing, but that Sheridan has – and from his sacrifice, they go forth and make themselves better than they were.

The alliance between the worlds is fragile and the populace of Babylon 5 are still frightened. They feel that the Shadows have been defeated and will not come back and attack anyone. Because of this fear, a new order comes about in which those who are still loyal to Sheridan and still believe that he is alive (Delenn, Lyta Alexander, Ulkesh, the Vorlons, Ivanova) are endangered by their beliefs.

The sense of safety is fragile, the various worlds that were threatened by the Shadows take comfort in their belief that the threat is gone and they can survive without fear. Yet, the sense of danger is still inherent, for even though Sheridan has made his sacrifice, there is no conclusive proof that the Shadows themselves have gone for good. The sense of safety and security is a fragile one, the hope is fragile and there is still an air of desperation about those who remain alive.

Conclusion.

Within the construct of television, “Babylon 5” and the episode “Z’ha’dum” slot nicely into the cliffhanger and dramatic genres as well as that of Cult Television. Programs such as “Buffy The Vampire Slayer,” “Star Trek”, “Quantum Leap,” and “The Practise,” “ER”, “West Wing,” etc, all have season finale cliff-hangers of one form or another. The concept of the lead character making the ultimate sacrifice is one that is used quite often in Cult Television shows particularly, as previously noted.

“Babylon 5” manages to fulfil the requirements of the types of dramatic stages of communication dramas, notably the mythical category and provide a lasting example of excellent Cult Television.

Programmes Cited.

“Z’ha’dum,” Babylon 5,  Babylonian Productions, Warner Brothers, 1997.

Bibliography.

Bassom, David. The A-Z Guide to Babylon 5. New York, Dell Publishing, 1997.

Chesebro, James W. “Communication, Values and Popular Television Series – A Four Year Assessment,” in Newcomb, Horace, ed., Television: A Critical View Fourth Edition. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1987.

Murray, Matthew. “Synopsis of ‘Z’ha’dum’”. 1997. < http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/synops/066.html >

Nazarro, Joe. “Z’ha’dum,” Babylon 5, 1, (1997), pages 53-58.

Snell, Jason. “Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5: Z’ha’dum”. 1997.  < http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/066.html >

Questions? Comments? Wanna stroke my ego? Then e-mail me.