ISN sends a team to do a second story about Babylon 5.
####Overview

####Guest Stars

Jeff Griggs as Dan Randall.
####Lurk

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/synops/074.html
####Plot Points

Clark has reinstated the Earth Senate in some form. It has begun investigating alleged alien influence in the entertainment industry and extracting confessions and lists of collaborators from writers and directors.

Sheridan’s father was a diplomat. The family farm has been burned to the ground, and his father’s whereabouts are unknown.

Earth, according to ISN, is slowly retaking Mars from the rebels who took over when Clark’s forces attacked ([[Severed Dreams]].)
####Unanswered Questions

Will the newscast prove convincing to people on Earth?

Where is Sheridan’s father? What about his mother?

What names did Sheridan give his father?

Is Garibaldi’s salvage business as it appears, or is he using it as a cover for other activities?

How did Randall get into the cryogenic freezer area? If it’s really restricted as he says, someone must have let him in.
####Analysis

Psi Corps presumably now knows the fate of the telepaths; two of their names are plainly visible behind Randall (see Notes.) Will the Corps try to come after them? What about the allies of the Shadows, who may have some interest in the telepaths’ implants? If Shadow ships were left behind (not unlikely, considering there were lots of them buried underground) they’ll need pilots who’ve gone through the proper preparation ([[Messages From Earth]]) and the telepaths are ready-made candidates.

Garibaldi seems to have turned against Sheridan completely, going so far as to allude to him as “the devil.” Is that a direct result of his programming (or whatever was triggered by the message in [[Epiphanies]]) or is there some other reason?

ISN’s new title sequence reflects the provincial, Earth-centric views of the Clark government: after a flight through space, the sequence ends up centered on Earth and the Moon.
####Notes

The newscast was broadcast on April 12, 2261. Four historical events were cited as taking place on the same date: Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space (April 12, 1961,) President Clinton’s establishment of a “Commission on the Future” in 1999, the start of construction of the first lunar colony in the Sea of Tranquility in 2018, and the founding of the Psi Corps in 2161.

The confession of the director bore strong resemblance to the confessions extracted by the House Un-American Activities Commission in the US during the 1950s. In that case it was Communists and homosexuals, not aliens, but the focus on entertainers was the same, as was the practice of demanding lists of collaborators. Those who refused to cooperated were “blacklisted,” and found themselves unable to get work in Hollywood.

In fact, the names cited are based on actual people blacklisted in the 1950s. Beth Trumbo is likely a reference to writer Dalton Trumbo, Adrian Mostel to producer Adrian Scott and actor Zero Mostel, and Carleton Jarrico to writer Paul Jarrico.

Paul Jarrico died in an automobile accident on October 28, 1997, the day after receiving a standing ovation at a Hollywood ceremony honoring the surviving blacklisted screenwriters.

Two names are visible on the cryogenic freezers during Randall’s report. One, Carolyn Sanderson, is Bester’s love ([[Ship of Tears]].) The other is John Flinn III, one of the show’s directors.

The psychological phenomenon of hostages sympathizing with their captors is the Stockholm syndrome, not the Helsinki syndrome as stated in the episode. Some readers have commented that both names are correct, but that appears to not be the case according to psychological literature. For example, “Stockholm syndrome” appears 30 times in the journals of the American Psychological Association from 1887 to 1999, but “Helsinki syndrome” isn’t mentioned even once.

The newscast misspelled Yuri Gagarin’s name; it was spelled “Gargarin” on the screen.