Downbelow: A Babylon 5 IntroCast

One Response to “Episode 061 – The Long, Twilight Struggle”

1. Voord 99 Says:
   January 22nd, 2015 at 6:03 pm

   [Spoilers for Comes the Inquisitor]

   I like pretty much everything about this episode aside from the “shocking” reveal at the end. I don’t mind that Sebastian is Jack the Ripper. I don’t even mind that the show tells us that he’s Jack the Ripper, although I think that JMS could have trusted his viewers a little more. I do mind that the reveal is massively, clumsily overdone.

   However, it doesn’t really matter, because Sebastian is really Sheridan anywat. Comes the Inquisitor is the companion piece to In the Shadow of Z’Ha’Dum, with someone other than Sheridan in the role of interrogator, but someone who shares Sheridan’s confidence that he knows what’s right and that this doesn’t involve worrying about what anyone else thinks.

   Of course, a person like that is not really a social animal. I’m not sure that makes them like an actual serial killer (real serial killers not being something about which I know anything very much). But the monstrous image of the fictional serial killer can be very much like that, and certainly this one is: Sebastian presents himself as someone whose fanatical moral certainty led him to horrific acts of murder in opposition to the rest of humanity.

   So, a nice little examination of the similarity between our heroes and our monsters. Plus, Wayne Alexander gives one of the best guest performances in the series’ entire history.

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