The Rules of the Game

Overview

Gideon attempts to negotiate for the right to land on an alien planet, but the aliens have other ideas. Jamie Rose as Cynthia. Tim Choate as Polix. 
Production number: 112
Original air date: July 21, 1999
DVD release date: December 7, 2004

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jesus Treviño

Plot Points

  • @@@932976564 The original inhabitants of the planet Lorka 7 were wiped out a long time ago, but the details are unknown. The new inhabitants, who were led to the planet five hundred years ago by a being they call "The Most Holy," have agreed to let the Excalibur land and investigate to see what happened to their predecessors.
  • @@@932976564 Lochley and Gideon have consummated their budding relationship.
  • @@@932976564 Max was a child prodigy, always getting beaten up in school for being smarter than his peers. He had a lonely life until he met a woman named Cynthia Allen; the two of them were married for some time, but she eventually left when it became clear that his devotion was more to IPX than to her. Her business, trading alien art and antiquities, was devastated by the quarantine of Earth.

Unanswered Questions

  • @@@932976564 Who or what was the Lorkans' "Most Holy?" A Vorlon? Why were they led to Lorka 7? Where were they before then?
  • @@@932976564 What wiped out the previous population of Lorka 7?
  • @@@932976564 What other alien artifacts does Max have in his quarters?

Analysis

  • @@@932976564 Dr. Chambers was clearly no stranger to fighting. Was she formally trained? Perhaps she has served in Earthforce; on the Excalibur it's not entirely clear whether she's a civilian.
  • @@@932976564 Five years after the founding of the Alliance, Babylon 5 is still teeming with activity. Yet a decade and a half later, at the time of Sheridan's death ("Sleeping in Light") it's considered useless. What happens in the intervening years to cause people to stop coming to the station?

Notes

  • @@@932976564 Lochley likes to retreat to Downbelow when the stresses of running the station become too great.
  • @@@932976564 Just after the shower scene, a ship is shown entering B5's docking bay. This is a tongue-in-cheek variant on an old cinematic metaphor, more typically rendered as a train going into a tunnel.
  • @@@936120474 Tim Choate, who plays Polix, was Zathras in the original series.
  • @@@932976564 Dedication:
    In Memory of Mister Kitty
    198? to May 17, 1999
    Now chasing star-mice

jms speaks

  • @@@932976564 "I presume that Mr. Kitty was yours?"

    Yup.

  • @@@932976564 Was the Lorcan at the end played by Wayne Alexander?
    No, it wasn't Wayne, and the name slips away at the moment.