When I saw the commercial for this one the first time around, I thought for sure they were going to find Atlantis. Don’t get me wrong, finding Atlantis would have been very cool (as long as they did it in a believable way, unlike the later episode), but the Library of Alexandria is so much better. Besides the fact that the Library is based in fact, it makes an interesting archeological find. And, as they prove here, it brings all sorts of questions about ownership and theological differences into play. By far, the most interesting scenes in this episode are the ones that directly involve the artifacts in the Library and the conference. I especially love the last scene in the tent, where Bridger threatens to destroy all of it. As he points out, the artifacts in the Library are from so many diverse cultures that no one item belongs to one country. And there’s no way they should. Art and culture should be for everyone, everywhere to enjoy and learn from. But as with everything in that part of the world lately, people there take a position of ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine’ instead of learning how to compromise and share. As for the other plot thread in this episode - i.e. the parapsychologists - all I can do is just roll my eyes. I’ll go more in depth on them later, but suffice it to say at this point, I’m not a major proponent of ESP. The one part of that plot I do particularly like is the discussion of freedom toward the end. It’s quite poignant and thoughtful. But the rest is a bit boring and takes away from the more interesting discovery of the Library.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY:
Not much this week, other than the Library itself.
Sea Crabs - This is the first appearance of the sea crabs on the show. They’re inherently a pretty neat vehicle. They are one or two person crafts, and I believe the ‘arms’ are maneuverable and used for such tasks as grabbing items. Current undersea vehicles usually have only one arm, but I can see where having several could be the next logical design step. Unfortunately, we don’t see much of the crabs other than a few quick shots here and there throughout the season.
CHARACTERS:
You can definitely see Ford’s stance on science beginning to soften here. In fact, if you go back to my mention a few weeks ago that initially Ford and Westphalen were meant to become romantically involved (a pairing that I still can’t help but laugh at), several of the scenes in here make so much more sense. But anyway, it’s hard to imagine anyone not getting excited about a discovery like this. For many of us, the most exciting thing we ever discover is loose change in the sofa (or if you’re like my mother, mold on leftovers in the back of the fridge). Still, I like that Ford is beginning to see that having scientists on board can be a good thing.
There are several themes with the character of Lucas that are on-going for much of the season. The one that begins here is his attraction for the opposite sex. Yes, it’s played for humor here, but he’s a 16-year-old male. That’s about when males start to get over the ‘eww, girls have cooties’ stage and start paying serious attention to girls. But it’s the character arcs like this that make characters all that much better.
Besides the fact that she’s a parapsychologist, I just plain don’t like Savannah. I haven’t been able to pin down the exact reason. Maybe it’s that she’s a bad actor, maybe it’s the way Bridger keeps looking her up and down like she’s a piece of meat, or maybe it’s just that I hate characters which are written as sex objects first and substantial characters second. Whatever it is, she just bugs me like no one else on this show.
The parapsychologist trio:
There are two ways to look at this topic. Either you don’t believe in ESP because there is no definitive proof of its existence; or, you do believe in it because there is no definitive proof that it doesn’t exist. I tend more toward the former. That isn’t to say it’s not a perfectly fine plot device - if used the right ways. Unfortunately they don’t do that here. In Babylon 5, they create a whole culture of telepaths, give them a little history, a structure, their own little society of Psi Corps; in that case I don’t mind the existence of telepaths, outside of some bad acting, of course. Even in a case of criminal profiling I could understand the use of ESP in limited amounts. But their existence in this episode just comes across as contrived. Maybe not so much the fact that there’s a leak aboard, but the use of parapsychologists to find it is dumb. And wanting a vacation? As Bridger says, just ask for one. This whole plot takes away from the far more interesting Library. I’m actually quite glad that they use ESP as the butt of more than one joke here. But perhaps even more distressing than anything, is the fact that two of the three characters are quite two-dimensional. We never learn much about Dimitri or Louis, other than that they want to quit. We get a little bit of a look into Savannah’s psyche with her story about the kidnapper, which is nice by the way, but that never gets expounded on more. Personally, Turhan Bey (Dimitri Rossovich) is a much better actor than Lindsay Frost (Savannah), and they should have utilized that more by expanding on his character.
QUICK QUESTIONS, QUERIES, QUANDRIES AND COMMENTS:
I bring your attention to the first scene in the ward room, where Hassan explains about the Library and they discover ships have arrived to claim the ‘treasure.’ Bridger tells Ford to “put Stingers and speeders on twenty-four hour alert.” Well gee, I thought the Stinger wasn’t finished for several months still, and even then it was just a prototype. Whoops.
And also headed for the blooper reel is the scene where Savannah makes goo-goo eyes at Darwin and he calls her ‘melon lady.’ Bridger says the name is because she’s rubbing Darwin’s melon. Wrong! She’s rubbing under his snout, but the melon is the…forehead, for lack of a better term. It’s where dolphins’ echolocation (sonar, essentially) originates and registers.
Bridger stares at a statue and says “I don’t think nature intended me to be analyzed into tiny bits.” Oops, that’s what I’m doing.
BOB BALLARD MOMENT:
This week Bob talks about shipwrecks. Because the deep sea is like a freezer, it preserves them pretty well. Soon (after the original airing) there were plans in the works to look around the waters off China where some of the oldest shipwrecks are located.
