I love how Garibaldi, who's the type who might just bend the rules, still knows there's a limit to what is allowable. I also love how everybody comes out of the woodwork to put pressure on Sheridan about Morden. The consequences of his actions.
As much as I like Sheridan and despise Morden. Sheridan is wrong here. As a leader he has to maintain discipline. His actions are illegal and he needs to reevaluate his methods. What he should do is see what he can charge Morden with honestly he should have done that before taking him into custody. Otherwise he should let him go.
Yeah the episode does a good job of showing us why he's doing it, even as we realize that what he's doing is wrong. It strikes a nice balance, especially his talk with Ivanova. But I think the main point is that the episode shows why people violating the law, even to stop Bad Guys, is still wrong. That's to contrast Clark's regime (which Zach kind of joins at the end). This is a _very_ old school kind of plot. During the 90's (after the main plot of B5 was written but as it was being aired), a wee bit of corruption or rule-bending in the name of the Greater Good or stopping Evil People became acceptable in hollywood logic. Then starting in the 2000's the TV shows and movies started saying that, so long as you were on the Good Guy Side, you could do stuff like that and it was all for the best so long as your intentions were good. I guess it's a generational thing.
You have to remember that for a character to prove interesting, he/she must have something to overcome: this was Sheridan's Achilles' heel, and it made for great drama. Who would let someone go that SHOULD know the answers to a mystery--especially if that person knew about another's mates' disappearance? So Sheridan seeing Earth Central listing him as "dead" means he can skirt the issue--although it IS an abuse.
I can understand Sheridan wanting to learn about the fate of his wife and I can sympathize with those feelings. (I also understand that eventually we learn Morden is an agent of the Shadows.) However, at this point Sheridan is acting more like a Gestapo agent than a member of Earth Force. "We're holding him in protective custody." "Protecting him from what?" "I haven't decided yet." In other words he is illegally holding a person who is not suspected of any actual crime just on the whim of a military officer. (Your papers are not in order!) In another clip from this episode Morden tells Sheridan that he knows his rights and wants legal representation. Sheridan responds by telling Morden "According to earth records you are dead and dead men have no rights." Really? Just because the records are incorrect that means a living, breathing person has no rights? If that isn't a Gestapo attitude I don't know what is. Think about this; Garibaldi is a true hard ass who has no problem with bending the rules to accomplish his mission, but even HE sees Sheridans actions as so overboard that he is willing to resign his position rather than support Sheridans actions. At this point Sheridan should be wearing a black uniform with SS runes on the collar.
That ends with a wild exaggeration but obviously Sheridan is taking steps down that dark path before he finally backs off. Notice how everyone who demands Morden's release ends up as a good guy, even Vir. Meanwhile, Zach goes along with the authoritarian tactics. He isn't a bad person, he's just a normal guy who works for a living and doesn't want to rock the boat over principles... and so the episode ends with him joining the Night Watch.
Morden's paperwork *is* legitimately out of order, though. Identity theft wasn't really something the general public thought much about when this was filmed, but it certainly is today. As far as the Earth Alliance is concerned, Morden flashed a dead man's passport when he went through customs, and based on what he told Talia, it sounds like Morden hadn't yet had his EA citizenship status changed back to "still alive". It's not at all unreasonable to detain such a person on suspicion of fake ID's and identity theft while that gets sorted out. For that matter, Sheridan could also reasonably demand answers about the lost Icarus mission that supposedly killed him. Morden was under contract with EarthForce's New Technologies Division when the expedition went missing, so Sheridan could claim military jurisdiction over Morden to find out what happened when one of EarthForce's presumed-dead employees - especially one who probably has a ton of highly classified military secrets in his head - suddenly reappears. The fact that Morden seems to have friends in high places with other governments would only add to the urgency of finding out his story. Of course, as Kosh and Delenn suggest later in the episode, actually getting those answers at that point would cause much bigger problems for everyone, but my point here is that there are multiple reasonable and perfectly legal ways for Sheridan to hold Morden. The fact that Sheridan didn't bother with them is telling. Sheridan is usually remarkably smooth when dealing with groups like EarthDome and the Council, so I took his uncharacteristically emotional brute-force approach here as a testament to just how thoroughly Morden's apparent return from the grave must have rattled him.
I love how Garibaldi, who's the type who might just bend the rules, still knows there's a limit to what is allowable. I also love how everybody comes out of the woodwork to put pressure on Sheridan about Morden. The consequences of his actions.
I love how when a subordinate pulls the “or I resign” on someone in charge.
Agreed
As much as I like Sheridan and despise Morden. Sheridan is wrong here. As a leader he has to maintain discipline. His actions are illegal and he needs to reevaluate his methods. What he should do is see what he can charge Morden with honestly he should have done that before taking him into custody. Otherwise he should let him go.
Yeah the episode does a good job of showing us why he's doing it, even as we realize that what he's doing is wrong. It strikes a nice balance, especially his talk with Ivanova. But I think the main point is that the episode shows why people violating the law, even to stop Bad Guys, is still wrong. That's to contrast Clark's regime (which Zach kind of joins at the end).
This is a _very_ old school kind of plot. During the 90's (after the main plot of B5 was written but as it was being aired), a wee bit of corruption or rule-bending in the name of the Greater Good or stopping Evil People became acceptable in hollywood logic. Then starting in the 2000's the TV shows and movies started saying that, so long as you were on the Good Guy Side, you could do stuff like that and it was all for the best so long as your intentions were good. I guess it's a generational thing.
Ah I can tell you never been married before.
You have to remember that for a character to prove interesting, he/she must have something to overcome: this was Sheridan's Achilles' heel, and it made for great drama. Who would let someone go that SHOULD know the answers to a mystery--especially if that person knew about another's mates' disappearance? So Sheridan seeing Earth Central listing him as "dead" means he can skirt the issue--although it IS an abuse.
@@tallflguy you're basing that on what exactly?
@@getreal6124 I get why Sheridan is doing what he's doing in the scene at the same time it doesn't make it right.
*NEWSFLASH : Just like Lyta Alexander, etc Talia Winters is only one of the many telepathic Psi Corps minions on Babylon 5*
I can understand Sheridan wanting to learn about the fate of his wife and I can sympathize with those feelings. (I also understand that eventually we learn Morden is an agent of the Shadows.) However, at this point Sheridan is acting more like a Gestapo agent than a member of Earth Force. "We're holding him in protective custody." "Protecting him from what?" "I haven't decided yet." In other words he is illegally holding a person who is not suspected of any actual crime just on the whim of a military officer. (Your papers are not in order!) In another clip from this episode Morden tells Sheridan that he knows his rights and wants legal representation. Sheridan responds by telling Morden "According to earth records you are dead and dead men have no rights." Really? Just because the records are incorrect that means a living, breathing person has no rights? If that isn't a Gestapo attitude I don't know what is. Think about this; Garibaldi is a true hard ass who has no problem with bending the rules to accomplish his mission, but even HE sees Sheridans actions as so overboard that he is willing to resign his position rather than support Sheridans actions. At this point Sheridan should be wearing a black uniform with SS runes on the collar.
Very true
This episode is where we see the darker side of Sheridan, the side that both the Vorlon and the Shadows might have made spectacular use of...
That ends with a wild exaggeration but obviously Sheridan is taking steps down that dark path before he finally backs off. Notice how everyone who demands Morden's release ends up as a good guy, even Vir. Meanwhile, Zach goes along with the authoritarian tactics. He isn't a bad person, he's just a normal guy who works for a living and doesn't want to rock the boat over principles... and so the episode ends with him joining the Night Watch.
Morden's paperwork *is* legitimately out of order, though. Identity theft wasn't really something the general public thought much about when this was filmed, but it certainly is today. As far as the Earth Alliance is concerned, Morden flashed a dead man's passport when he went through customs, and based on what he told Talia, it sounds like Morden hadn't yet had his EA citizenship status changed back to "still alive". It's not at all unreasonable to detain such a person on suspicion of fake ID's and identity theft while that gets sorted out.
For that matter, Sheridan could also reasonably demand answers about the lost Icarus mission that supposedly killed him. Morden was under contract with EarthForce's New Technologies Division when the expedition went missing, so Sheridan could claim military jurisdiction over Morden to find out what happened when one of EarthForce's presumed-dead employees - especially one who probably has a ton of highly classified military secrets in his head - suddenly reappears. The fact that Morden seems to have friends in high places with other governments would only add to the urgency of finding out his story.
Of course, as Kosh and Delenn suggest later in the episode, actually getting those answers at that point would cause much bigger problems for everyone, but my point here is that there are multiple reasonable and perfectly legal ways for Sheridan to hold Morden. The fact that Sheridan didn't bother with them is telling. Sheridan is usually remarkably smooth when dealing with groups like EarthDome and the Council, so I took his uncharacteristically emotional brute-force approach here as a testament to just how thoroughly Morden's apparent return from the grave must have rattled him.