B5 Watchthrough: Grail

[ariela]

Grail's another one you can just skip. It's not terrible, especially for Season 1, but it's also not particularly good (and everything having to do with a character named Jinxo is... really not good), and the Arthurian/Tolkienesque ground will be covered, with more relevance to both the arc and B5's themes, in a later episode.

There's kind of a funny scene in which humans are suing gray aliens for abductions.

Honestly, the only important part of Grail that I noticed as important is the reminder of the Babylon Project's history.

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England."

Ooops, sorry, wrong IP. 

When humans first came there, it was all space. Everyone said they were daft to build a space station there (Lloyd's of London put the odds of success at 500 to 1!) but they built it all the same, just to show them. Its infrastructure collapsed due to sabotage. So they built a second one. And that one exploded during construction. So they build a third. That one exploded too. So they built a fourth. That one mysteriously disappeared 24 hours after it became operational. But the fifth one stayed in orbit. And that's what we got, dear reader, the strongest station in all the galaxy.

Deep dive:

• Rowan Kaiser's analysis and review at the AV Club.
• Lurker's Guide episode page.

Main takeaways:

• Garibaldi needs to watch his back.
• None of the previous stations have survived more than 24 hours into functionality.
• Three of the previous stations were destroyed by sabotage (why?).
• Babylon 4 vanished mysteriously.