Babylon 5 season 1

I like it enough somehow, but it's no special page in science-fiction. My favourite thing is Ivanova, because she's a strong woman, she values her career, but without giving up on her feelings. She's not icy, she's a good character; then I like Lennier. I missed any real relationship between characters, they simply do their job but almost never interact on a human level. There's one scene between Garibaldi and Sinclair, and a little scene between Sinclair and Ivanova, but it's not enough to "feel" the characters.
Another problem is how little futuristic it seems. In episode 2 we have Sinclair using his ship like a claw-machine to grab another ship, and in episode 3 we see Vir playing pocket videogames and Londo watching semi-naked girls dance at the night club. That sounds more like the 90s than like 2258. Again in ep 21 we see the night-club with an addition of gambling. Sure, in ep 3 we also see that they use crystals as usb keys, but that's a small thing for a sci-fi show. Also, in ep 12 we see that workers have less rights than they have now. It's not a matter of budget but of ideas.

"it was the dawn of the Third Age of mankind, 10 years after the Earth-Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs and wanderers. Humans and aliens, wrapped in 2.500.000 tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5."
Michael O'Hare as commander Jeffrey Sinclair
Claudia Christian as Lt. Commander Susan Ivanova
Jerry Doyle as Security Chief Michael Garibaldi
Mira Furlan as Delenn
also
Richard Biggs as Dr Stephen Franklin
Andrea Thompson as Talia Winters
Stephen Furst as Vir
Bill Mumy as Lennier
Caitlin Brown as Na'Toth
with
Andrea Katsulas as G'Kar
Peter Jurasik as Londo


The episodes:
1- Midnight on the firing line (mezzanotte di fuoco) - It starts off with Centauri agricultural colony Ragesh 3 being attacked. Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari thinks the Narn are responsible. Narn ambassador G'Kar said at first that he knew nothing about it, then he said "I just heard", still acting innocent, but not for long; they have a fight and G'Kar sort of threatens him. Londo is very worried because his beloved nephew Carn is on that colony, a job he personally found for him to 'keep him safe, out of military life', the irony. Commander Sinclair has to put on a gas-mask to visit ambassador Kosh. Londo is upset because the Centauri Republic is going to do nothing about the attack. Londo says he'll die 20 years from now, killing and/or being killed by G'Kar. G'Kar remembers how green his planet was before the Centauri ruined it. Sinclair says to him after it's been clear that the Narn attacked it: "you didn't even have the decency to pick a military target" and "the sneak attack is the first resort of a coward", and he adds in disgust: "a poorly-armed civilian colony". Apparently though, the Centauri invaded the Narn sector "and began their 100-year reign of terror"; Ragesh 3 was once Narn, but it's been Centauri's property for a century now. Londo wants to kill G'Kar, shoot him, but the telepath senses that and warns Garibaldi, who stops him. The cmdr stops a raider's attack, then "on the command and control ship" he found proof that the Narn were selling weapons to the Raiders, and also that their attack on Ragesh 3 was unprovoked and uninvited, so either the Narn withdraw or he'll show the proof to the Council..
Lt. Cmdr Ivanova doesn't like the telepathic woman and keeps avoiding her. When they finally talk, it turns out that Ivanova hates the Psi Corps, because when they discovered that her mother was a telepath, they let her choose: 1-join the corps, 2-go to prison, 3-agree to take certain drugs for the rest of her life. Obviously she chose the drugs, she didn't want to abandon her family: once a week for 10 years, strong drugs until she couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide.
The vote for the Earth President: Santiago won, a man who promised to cut the budget, to defend Earth culture against the foreigners.. blah blah blah, usual stuff they always say.
At the end of the episode we see what is Garibaldi's second favourite thing in the world: Looney Tunes cartoons, shared with (I think) the Minbari Ambassador, who didn't understand his enthusiasm or his love for popcorn, but very politely tried both :-)
2- Soul Hunter (cacciatore di anime) - Dr Franklin arrives to start working here. A ship comes out of hyperspace in bad shape; Sinclair grabs it with his ship (literally grabs it, high technology :-p) avoiding a collision with the station. The rescued is identified by Delenn as Shak Tot, a Soul Hunter. She wants to kill "it"  "before it's too late, before someone dies". She says that soul hunters are immortal, and they sense death and are drawn to it. They can steal the soul at the moment of death. Several alien ships want to leave the station as soon as they hear about his presence. A con-man is stabbed to death and this alien starts speaking. He says they don't steal, they "save" the souls of special people, but the Minbari won't let them help them: "we have saved only a few. Very rare. Rarest of all their leader, Dukhat, dying. Your fault. Your war." he wanted to take Dukhat's soul but the Minbari stopped him and he died and all that he was was gone.
The dead body of the con-man is launched towards a burning-star because his family can't afford to bring him/it home. Franking: "typical human lifespan is almost 100 years but it's barely a second compared to what's out there. Wouldn't be so bad if life didn't take so long to figure out. Seems you just start to get it right and then... it's over" - Ivanova "it doesn't matter, if we lived 200 years we'd still be humans. We'd still make the same mistakes" - F:"you're a pessimist" - Iv:"I'm Russian, Doctor, we understand these things" :lol: Actually I don't know why it's funny, I like the way she says it, I guess :-)
The hunter thinks that the soul ends with death unless they preserve it, while Delenn thinks the soul will be reincarnated in the next generation of Minbari. He calls her Satai Delenn of the Grey Council, stating that she was  a leader, not an ambassador, then he escapes from the medlab. Another hunter comes to warn Sinclair that the first one is "deeply disturbed" and  might kill someone, because he has stopped waiting for them to die, now he kills them to take their souls. Of course Sinclair stops him. He was about to take Delenn's soul by killing her, but Sinclair turned his machine against him. Delenn is of course alive, which according to the doctor is quite remarkable because a human would have died after losing so much blood. Delenn was about to say something to Sinclair but then she fell asleep and never said it. Sinclair returns the 'collection of souls' to Delenn, and she sets them all free. At this point I have an observation: she sets them free whatever species they might be, because the soul hunter said before that taking Minbari's souls is not at all easy, so he can't have had many.
3- Born to the purple (mistero a Babylon 5) - The Centauri dancer that Londo likes so much has a master who orders her to spy on him. She actually seems to like Londo, for real, but she must obey because she's a slave and he owns her. Londo likes her very much.
She puts something on his drink to make him sleep, then she copies all his personal files into a crystal and leaves. She should give the crystal to her master, but instead she runs away, trying to escape him.
The bastard then tells Londo a few lies about her and the big truth of what she did.
I like Londo's answer when he asks for Sinclair's help: Sinclair sees a great opportunity here, since the Narn-Centauri negotiations are going badly because of the two stubborn ambassadors who hate each other, so he says that he'll help him if he will agree to his compromise on the treaty, and Londo replies "I'll even seal it with a kiss" :-p you know, like they used to say a long time ago, apparently:-)
He said it well :-)
The bastard gets to the girl first, but Miss Winters the telepath helps them get her location from his mind, so they save both the girl and the data. When Adira Tyree (Fabiana Udenio) leaves the station, Londo goes to say goodbye; he gives her back her freedom (Sinclair secured it from the bastard) and he also gives her a jewel (a precious pin) then she boards the ship and is gone.
Side story: Garibaldi is trying to find out who is using an unauthorized channel, but Ivanova doesn't seem as concern about it as he is. She says it might be a malfunction but he doesn't let it go, he keeps at it and he witnesses Ivanova herself using it, to talk to her dying father. It's touching. He says that after her mother and brother died he was so deep in grief he didn't give her the love she deserved, but he's sorry now and very proud of her, then he dies and she cries. He tells her that he tracked the call, but he won't report it as such, but as a computer error.
4- Infection (infezione) - Dr Vance Hendricks comes to the station to see Dr Franklin, who once was his student. He's an archeologist (David McCallum), and he smuggles in ancient organic artifacts for the doctor to study and analyze. One of them takes control of the man who touched it and transforms him; now he goes around with a weapon instead of a hand, killing people. It appears that that organic thing is a weapon, created by fanatics to kill everyone was not "pure race", so the weapon killed all the 'enemies' and then all the creators, because nobody is 'pure'.
This sounds a lot like a Star Trek episode, or two :-p
Sinclair goes heroic on Garibaldi again, and he goes alone. Like Kirk would have done, he talks to the weapon, makes him see that his world he wants to protect so much is dead, and has been for 1000 years, destroyed by those like him who should have protected it, so the "weapon" kills itself, but not Nelson, the man whose body was taken over by it.
Dr Franklin turns Vance in and he's arrested. The doctor is worried that what happened to that world might happen to Earth too, where there is talk of "Earth pure" and hate against aliens and such things, then the artifacts are confiscated for planetary security :-/
 Garibaldi confronts Jeff Sinclair as a friend: after the war some people act strangely, sometimes, like he's doing, putting himself in such danger: "some people call that being a hero, maybe so, I don't know, I've never been one, (...) I think they're looking for something worth dying for because that's easier than finding something worth living for" - that was a good scene, between Garibaldi and Sinclair.
A girl comes to the station, she's a journalist and wants to interview Sinclair for Interstellar Network News. She keeps poking around but Ivanova has her own way to stop her from annoying the commander any further "Don't. You're too young to experience that much pain.." :-p
5- The parliament of dreams (palazzo dei sogni) - The station is full of people come to "demonstrate their religious belief": at the Centauri "Celebration of life" Londo and Ivanova are quite enjoying themselves (read: getting ridiculously drunk). Delenn is joined by Lennier (he wasn't on he station before, he introduces himself to her now after calling her Satai Delenn): the Minbari celebration is much more serious, and features the word "death" many times.
For the Earth demonstration, Sinclair assembles a long row of people, each representing a different faith: catholic, atheist, buddhist, muslim, jew, aborigine, shinto, etc etc.
Second story: G'Kar's life has been seriously threatened by an old enemy now dead. Apparently before dying he hired an assassin, to kill him within 48 hours, and G'Kar is freaking out, but with good reasons. The assassin indeed comes, but G'Kar's assistant Na'Toth saves him.
Side story: Sinclair hooks up with an on-and-off girlfriend again, Catherine.
6- Mind war (guerra delle menti) - Bester (Walter Koenig) and an even more annoying girl are psycops looking for a powerful telepath who's been experimented upon. They demand Sinclair's help and question Miss Winters, who knows nothing about it, but they scan her mind because they 'have to be sure'. It's painful, apparently, but right after, Jason shows himself to her, explaining how incredibly powerful he has become and how dangerous it would be if the psy corps got him and discovered how to make others like him. She believes him, and cares a lot about him because they were once lovers, and she asks Sinclair to meet him and Sinclair agrees to help him. Unfortunately they are stopped by the psy corps before they can reach Jason's ship ( or a ship they give to him, not sure), and they try to overpower him with their minds combined, but he's too strong for them, and he kills the girl while Bester is only knocked down, then he leaves. Once outside the station, Jason becomes something else, a big light out in space and he speaks telepathically with them, giving Talia the gift of telekinesis and saying goodbye to Sinclair "I will see you again in a million years".
Something like this also happened on Star Trek. Just saying.
Bester has to yield to Sinclair's condition and agree to their version of the story, that Jason simply escaped. "but that's a lie" - Sinclair:"yes it is. what's your point?" one of my fav Sinclair moments.
Side story: Sigma 957 is the class 4 world Catherine wants to explore for exploitation. Before going she needs approval from G'Kar because that's Narn property. G'Kar warns her many times that the place is not safe, but she doesn't listen to him. "No one here is exactly what he appears" he says "my warning is sincere, ignore it at your own peril".
She does ignore it, and goes anyway, then a big colourful thing appears and vanishes, sucking all the energy of her ship. She'd have no chance of survival, but two Narn ships sent by G'Kar come to help her. He tells her "there are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races... we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us. We know, we've tried".
7- The war prayer (preghiera di sangue) - A friend of Delenn, a performer, is attacked by the Pro-Earth Group; two young Centauri come to the station to escape arranged marriages because they love each other and they too are attacked.
Mayann "I have travelled far and seen much and what I have seen tells me that all sentient beings are best defined by their capacity and their need for love"- Londo "she will learn to live without it" -  Mayann"as you did". He's touched by this remark. He remembers his father crying and saying "my shoes are too tight but it doesn't matter because I have forgotten how to dance" I like these words.
Londo finds a legal way to let the two lovers be together :-)
An ex-lover of Susan comes to the station. Ivanova left him eight years ago for her career, and now he tells her that he can accept it, and therefore is planning on staying and start working on Babylon 5.  She seems to like him a lot, but then Garibaldi discovers he's with the Pro-Earth group, if not the leader, and tells Sinclair and Susan. Sinclair tries to play undercover, and Malcolm is all "we want to put Earth back at the centre of the Universe, our Universe" oh my what an ignorant idiot, and there are so many like him, wanting to feel superior at all costs, when they so are not.
The pro-Earth group members were camouflage-clothes.  They were planning on killing the four major ambassadors, but Sinclair and Ivanova stop them and arrest them.
Sinclair also mentions that Earth won the war against the Minbari because "they let us win"
8- And the sky full of stars (un cielo pieno di stelle) - Some men arrive on the station bringing trouble to Sinclair. A new security man is highly indebted because he likes to gamble. Because of this, he sells a power source to those dangerous men for money, and they use it to enter Sinclair's mind after, I think, kidnapping him. He's 39, born of Mars Colony May 3, 2219, just for the record.
They keep him under drugs and enter his mind, but after a while he manages to get free and escape, but he's delusional because of the drugs, and also remembers things he didn't remember before, like Delenn in a grey robe. Garibaldi and everyone else is looking for him, and when they find him he shoots at them, but Delenn approaches him nonetheless, saying "I'm your friend" and he says "I know you" then he collapses. He is cured, but when Delenn asks him if he remembers anything he lies and says no. Luckily for him, since there is there a Minbari man that tells Delenn he must never know or he'll be killed. Still, he doesn't know the meaning of the little he remembers (of having been interrogated by the Grey Council, and then let go) but he's determined to find out.
9- Deathwalker (la morte in agguato) - A woman just arrived and Na'Toth attacks her, furiously, claiming she's Deathwalker; Garibaldi finds her Dilgar uniform, military rank War Master, which seems to prove that she's really Jha'dur (Sarah Douglas) also called Deathwalker. She admits to it when she wakes up: she discovered a serum of virtual immortality (it slows the aging process and prevents sickness) through experiments on aliens like the Narns. Sinclair asks for Lennier and Delenn's help and G'Kar tries to deal with her to get the serum, but Jha'dur asks for Na'toth's head in return! So evil!
Garibaldi is the only one who says "there is no choice" because her experiments were cruel to say the least. She infected, and killed, and experimented upon, she doesn't deserve anything.
"She wiped out entire races, destroyed whole planets, experimented on living beings, now she wants to make everybody immortal? Why?"
Earth wants her too, and Sinclair is inclined to follow the orders "she can save more lives than she took; if she can make the deaths she caused have meaning, isn't that worth considering?" No, I say, it's not that easy, because you can't justify her actions like this. Luckily G'Kar calls Ambassador Kalika (Robin Curtis) and an assembly of people stops her being sent to Earth. The Centauri, Narn, and even Minbari vote no at the Council, so she won't be put on trial on Babylon 5, but lots of aliens demand she'll be given over to them. Ivanova stalls them by making them argue on who should be the first to attack and claim her (:-p), while Sinclair makes a deal with the League (all those alien races that are not Centauri, Narn or Minbari are united in the League and have only one vote in the Council... doesn't seem very fair..): he reaches a compromise: they'll send some of their people to Earth to develop together the serum, and after that Jha'dur will be turned over to them. However, when Sinclair talks to Jha'dur, she scorns his attempt at justice by revealing that the serum needs an ingredient that can not be synthesized but must be taken from living beings "if you want to live forever, another one must die: you will fall upon one another like wolves. It'll make what we did pale by comparison. The billions who'll live forever will be a testimony to my work and the billions who are murdered to buy that immortality will be the continuance of my work. Not like us? You will become us!"
A Vorlon ship (Kosh's race) comes out while Jha'dur is leaving, and destroys her ship killing her.
Londo's comment: "well, all's well that ends well"
Sort of side story, whose significance is not clear to me. Talia Winters is employed by Ambassador Kosh in some strange negotiations between him and a weird man with some sort of machine in his brain.
It was developed differently, but the evil-doctor-with-the-miraculous-cure dilemma was also a Star Trek episode.
10- Believers (tra la vita e la morte) - An alien child is sick, but a simple surgery procedure could cure him, however his parents won't allow it for spiritual reasons, even if that means his sure death.
They are the "children of time" and if you "open them" their soul will be lost. The doctor and his assistant disagree on the way he's dealing with the situation. The doctor tries to go over their heads appealing to Sinclair, and the parents try to find protection from the ambassadors, but G'Kar, Londo, Kosh and Delenn, they all refuse. Sinclair also refuses, and the doctor wants to operate anyway, with the help of his assistant. The boy lives, feels well, but his parents refuse him now. They take him only to kill him because "that was not their son; because his spirit had gone when he was cut open, and was only a shell now" ... unbelievable.
Ivanova has nothing to do and is very bored, and wants a mission. :-p She goes on a mission to escort a damaged ship to Babylon 5. She finds herself surrounded by raiders and she engages battle alone, but she comes back safe.
11- Survivors (i sopravvissuti) - President Santiago is due to come to Babylon 5. There's an explosion, and head of Presidential Security Lianna takes over the case.
Michael knew Lianna seventeen years ago. He was working in a bad place full of crimes, and he was the only one that was honest and cared about justice and law. He started drinking to get through the day, then he befriended Lianna's father. Things started to go well, until the day some criminals killed his friend to get to him.
He stopped drinking, and that why he goes to the barman "I need a drink! Water! Straight!"
Lianna blames him, and now someone is trying to frame him for sabotage. He is a fugitive now, and starts drinking again, so they find him. She interrogates him, but he's still trying to figure out who could have framed him up, and the only possibility seems to be Cutter, one of her agents. When they confront him, Cutter knocks her down and fights Michael, who luckily manages to communicate with Ivanova just in time. Cutter was working for the Pro-Earth group, against Santiago alien policy. Before she leaves, Michael has a chance to talk to her again, and they clear things up. Before going, she hugs him :-)
12- By any means necessary (a qualsiasi costo) - A Narn cargo ship blows out a cargo bay, and a Babylon 5 worker dies. Their representative tries to explain how the workers can not be blamed for the accident. The equipment is not adequate and there are not enough workers for the amount of work and traffic there is: "the workers have been forced to work triple shifts because they are understaffed in every area".
The accident was caused by cheap equipment, cheap materials, something like that, so Sinclair hopes (naive) to get an increase in the station budget. The increase is denied (obviously, the governments tend to give less and less money for the well-being of their people) , no surprise there, no. The workers contract states that they can't go on strike so they call in sick. That's an illegal strike, and senator Hidoshi sends a man, Zento, to deal with it. What he does is : he orders Sinclair to arrest any illegal striker who won't go back to work! Zento is unhappy when Sinclair ends the situation by studying closely the "Rush act", by which he is authorized to use "any means necessary"  so he gives amnesty to all the workers and takes money away from the military budget.
G'Kar needs a specific plant for his religious ceremony, but it was in the cargo that got destroyed. Mollari has the only one on Babylon 5 but he refuses to give it or sell it to G'Kar.
Sinclair has made enemies in the Senate (not Hidoshi though, it would appear) but he got G'Kar's thanks for resolving his religious problem.
13- Signs and portents (premonizioni) - Londo bury for his Government a very important thing called 'the eye', a sort of precious jewel symbol of a noble family or something like that, I don't remember. Lord Kiro and his aunt Nadira come to take it back to their planet. Raiders steal it with the help of Kiro who thinks they'll help him take the power over the Emperor, but he's wrong.
A strange man asks every Ambassador "what do you want?" and at the end he gives the eye back to Londo, who already thought his career was over now that the eye was lost.
Nadira has a vision of Babylon 5 exploding and she warns Sinclair hoping he might avoid that future.
Garibaldi discovers how Sinclair got this command: the Minbari demanded to have a say on who'll be commander of Babylon 5 and they refused any other name: they wanted him.
14- TKO (scambio) - Walker Smith (Greg McKinney) is an old friend of Garibaldi. He was a great fighter until he was set up and his career ruined, but now he wants his last big chance: he wants to fight in the Mutai, a fighting tournament for aliens. There are no rules, the one still standing is the winner. No humans has ever fought in the Mutai, and Smith is initially turned down. An alien, ex-fighter, helps him by telling him what to do. Smith and Garibaldi go to a match, and when the Mutai champion wins, and the Mu-ta-do, the Master of the Game, asks who is brave enough to challenge him, Smith volunteers. The challenge is accepted and when they fight he can hold his own. They are both good fighters, and it goes on for a while like I-punch-you-you-punch-me, and at the end they are both on their knees and it is declared a tie, but Smith is now accepted in the Mutai circle, and he's made history on Earth as the first human ever to fight in the Mutai. He can return to Earth now.
Second story: a rabbi comes to help Susan in dealing with her loss; after her father died she didn't go to the funeral nor she mourned him here on Babylon 5. For some time she refuses to sit the Shiva, the ceremony where she mourns him with her friends and family, but at the end she changes her mind and mourns him and cries, and remembers him with the rabbi, some friends (I suppose, never seen them) and Sinclair "her dear friend". Crying is good, it'll do her good.
15- Grail (il calice sacro) - It starts with a piece of comedy: an alien, of the kind 'we know', all grey and long and thin, is on trial; a man says that the alien's ancestors kidnapped and experimented upon one of his ancestors, who was believed a madman and scorned by everyone.
Main story: a man named Aldous Gajic (David Warner) comes to Babylon 5: he's on a lifetime mission to find the Holy Grail.. yes, exactly. However, these represented here are not our times, where such a mission would be proof of a distressed/insane mind or else of a con-man asking for money to help him on his sacred mission. No, Aldous is really a good man, who demands nothing of others but on the contrary is the first to help. He once had a regular job, but after he lost his family nothing made sense anymore until he met the 'previous seeker' who gave him a purpose in life and believed in him. Now he's doing the same for Jinxo, a petty thief, rather incompetent, probably because he's actually a good man and stealing is a pathetic act of less-worthy people.
There's a creature who sucks the brain of people, and it's used by Douce (or something like that) to help him get rid of whoever he wants (it doesn't actually 'kill', as I understand it, but you're left empty, there's nothing left of you in your head). Jinxo owes Douce a lot of money, that's why he's caught stealing money (well, credits) from Aldous. At the trial, Aldous asks the judge to free Jinxo( that he will call by his real name Thomas) and put him under his care.
Jinxo worked on Babylon 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and each time the station blew up just after he left, so he thinks he is Babylon 5's curse, that if he leaves Babylon 5 will explode, but Aldous sees things differently. He's not cursed, he's lucky and special because he survived, very closely, four times. Aldous has lots of money, a good heart, and can fight, but bad guys never fight honorably so he's taken prisoner and Jinxo runs to Sinclair for help. The judge is also a prisoner. When the cavalry arrives and there's a fight, Thomas tries to free the judge, and Aldous protects him when someone is about to shoot him, so Aldous dies instead. Thomas takes on himself his mission and money and purpose; now he finally has a purpose in life and intends to fulfil his obligation and his promise to the man that turned his life around.
16- Eyes (occhi spaziali) - Garibaldi is building a motorbike (Kawasaki is all I remember of his long description :-p) and Lennier wants to help him with the Japanese manual :-)He's a quick study indeed! Since Garibaldi has no time now, he also offers to work on it himself, and at the end of the episode the bike will be completed and they'll ride it through the station together :-)
A hateful colonel comes to the station to investigate all command personnel , and he's accompanied by Mr Harriman Gray (Jeffrey Combs) from PsyCorps, who's here to scan their minds, but they refuse. The colonel's reason is much more personal, though; he hates Sinclair because he got Babylon 5. The colonel wanted this command, and is quite pissed off over it.
Susan would rather resign her post than be scanned, but she won't need to go that far because Sinclair and Garibaldi discovered the reason behind the colonel's witch-hunt (his hate, read above) and suggests Gray should scan both of them, not just Sinclair. Gray does it, but the colonel is on a frenzy and points a gun at them, so Gray stops him with a word "pain" into his brain :-p
Not a bad episode. I hated Bester, but I'd like to see Gray again :-)
17- Legacies (l'eredità) - A Minbari warrior is dead. He was a great leader and his clan of warriors come to Babylon 5 to honor him publicly; but before the war he was a religious man who wished for a quiet life and a quiet death. Because of this Delenn and her people "steal" the body and cremate him. The warriors make a big fuss over the disappearance of the body and insist on a big investigation. Their leader even attacks Sinclair.
To end this situation, Satai Delenn imposes her authority over him, even ordering him to apologize to Sinclair. When he does, the commander has nice words over the bravery and honor of the deceased  and the two man leave at peace.
The other story of the episode: a girl is found stealing, but she also just discovered to be a telepath. Talia would send her directly to Earth, to the PsyCorps, but of course Ivanova strongly opposes the idea. At the end, after considering all her choices, Alisa decides to go with the Minbari :-)
18- A voice in the wilderness part 1 (spazio part 1) - While civilian scientists are surveying the planet below, they are shot at. Missiles. Back to Babylon 5 they go, and they say they believe there's something artificial down there, and probably something worth protecting. Sinclair and Ivanova go there themselves and discover, five miles below the surface, big big machines like they've never seen, but also the image of a  man asking for help. They find him attached to some machinery or portal or something and they try to take him back to Babylon 5 to be cured. Meanwhile, on the Mars colony there's a rebellion going on and all communications are off. Sinclair and Ivanova have nobody there anymore, but Garibaldi left a woman when he came to work here. He's worried sick for her and asks for Talia's help in trying to contact her.
19- A voice in the wilderness part 2 (spazio part 2) - The alien that was in that machine recovered a bit of strength, enough to talk and explain, but he has only a few days to live, and without him the planet will explode taking Babylon 5 with it. An Earth ship and an alien ship come for the place and its wonders, but they can't have it.
Delenn's friend and ex-mentor takes the place of the alien into the machine, stabilizing the situation. Now there's no more risk of an explosion.
Garibaldi's friend Lise has been located on Mars. The rebellion is under control now. She's wounded but ok and he can speak to her. He tells her he made a mistake leaving her, but now she's married and about to have a baby.
20- Babylon squared (corruzione a Babylon 5) - Delenn is called back by the Grey Council to be made their leader, but she doesn't want to leave Babylon 5 forever. Apparently they stopped the war because there was a prophecy regarding humans, but one doubts it "what is it that makes the humans so special?"  *sigh* humans really think they are so special, don't they? All these movies, throughout the years, all the same: humans are so special, so noble, with so much to teach... how stupid is it, don't they ever take a good look around? The things humans would do for money are endless and indescribable. The things they do for every other reason all reunite under one word: superiority. Humans like so much to feel superior to others. Humans do not want to live in peace like brothers and sisters, each of them wants to be superior to everybody else. They all have that same look in their eyes: "i'm superior because: I have more money; I'm the master and you're the slave; I follow the 'sacred book' rules; I have weapons and you don't; I don't let old superstition guide my life; etc etc etc this might go on forever.
Humans are not superiors. Look around: so much injustice and horrible things going on!
Anyway, Babylon 4 reappears. Apparently it's shifting through time, and Sinclair tries to evacuate as many as possible before it disappears again. Now, why this five-at-a-time-policy? I understand they can't run all at once, it would be a mess, but five at a time? They don't have much time!
There's also a sort of alien on Babylon 4. He's from another time I think. They all escape, and then we see that "the One" so worshipped by the alien was actually an older Sinclair who "tried to warn them" of some great was about to come, and with him there's someone (I think it was Delenn) who spoke very affectionately to him.
Delenn goes back to Babylon 5, not sure is she's still accepted in the Council or not, it's for sure they didn't take well her refusing to be the leader, but she still have at least a friend in the Council. Good.
 21- The quality of mercy (il dono della misericordia) - Again we see that in 2258 humans and aliens spend their nights watching girls dancing and undressing, drinking alcohol and playing poker for money *rolling eyes*
 A man is a murderer, but they can't afford to send him to Earth or to keep him in prison and can not kill him, so they have only one chance: erase completely his personality. Talia scans him and is horrified.
The doctor goes down below to cure for free those who can't afford to pay, and discovers that there's another one, a woman who is healing people using an alien device. She's not a fraud, though, she's a good woman, and the machine works by giving her patients some of her life-energy. When the murderer escapes, and is wounded, he goes to her and force her to help him threatening her daughter's life, she does so, but when she realizes he'll never let the girl live, she uses the machine in reverse, taking his life force and giving him all her pain and terminal illness. He dies, and she's cured, but feels the guilt of taking a man's life. She'll leave the station, on a journey to redeem herself. She turns her machine over to Doctor Franklin :-)
22- Chrysalis (metamorfosi) - Narn and Centauri have yet another quarrel, over quadrant 37 this time. Neither G'Kar nor Londo wants to back down when that strange man that brought Londo back 'the eye' comes back to offer him his help, and he accepts it. The Narn outpost is destroyed, 10.000 Narns die, everything is destroyed.
Sinclair plans to marry Catherine and Garibaldi and Ivanova are to be best man and maid of honor.
There's a conspiracy and Garibaldi is shot by a traitor security man. The Earth President is killed, although everyone on Earth keeps believing it an accident.
The mysterious man Morden talks to the 'shadows', they have mysterious plans.
Delenn begins a mysterious transformation, and nobody knows what'll be of her, and Lennier is afraid for her.
The episode (and the series) ends without telling us what it'll be of Delenn, of Garibaldi, or of anything else. The new President doesn't seem so keen on aliens, he's probably part of Home Guard too..
The marriage too is on hold, another cliffhanger for next series.
I wonder if I can find the other seasons on dvd...