“The Long Dark”
Written by Scott Frost
Directed by Mario DiLeo
Season 2, Episode 5
Production episode 205
Original air date: November 30, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… A very old ship, sending out an unfamiliar signal, is tumbling through space toward B5. It identifies itself as the USS Copernicus, which indicates that it’s a very old human ship, as Earth ships these days have the EAS prefix.
Even as the signal comes in, a lurker in downbelow named Amis starts going completely batshit, desperately uttering the Lord’s Prayer, then running screaming down the corridor. He winds up in the Zocalo, screaming about armies of darkness and soldiers of the devil and so forth until he’s taken into custody by Garibaldi.
Maintenance bots are dispatched to the Copernicus. Sheridan recognizes it as an old sleeper ship of a type used before the Centauri sold jumpgate tech to Earth. There’s one lifesign on board. A boarding party finds two capsules, one with a corpse, one with a living woman, who is rushed to medlab.
Garibaldi checks on Amis, who is having nightmares that indicate that he fought in the Earth-Minbari War—mostly because, as Garibaldi explains to his subordinate, he himself has the exact same nightmares from his time as a GROPO (ground-pounder) in the war.
When Amis wakes up, he’s much more rational—but he has no memory of the incident, which he says is not unusual. Garibaldi lets him go, offering a counselor.
Franklin saves the woman and does an autopsy on the corpse. The organs have been removed, which indicates that he was murdered. The woman wakes up, identifying herself as Mariah Cirrus. Her husband is Will Cirrus, and they volunteered for this mission. She’s stunned to learn that a century has passed since they launched, and even more stunned to learn that her husband is dead.
Amis finds himself wandering to the Copernicus, until security chases him out of the loading bay.
Franklin shows Mariah around the station, filling her in on the high points of the last hundred years, including the successful war against the Dilgar and the inconclusive war against the Minbari. He introduces her to G’Kar, who informs Mariah that she’d be better off back where she started a century ago. This prompts a hallucination, as Mariah sees images of herself in her tube with something looming over her. She passes out, and wakes up in Franklin’s quarters, because, he says, they were closest. Uh huh. The two of them almost kiss, which is howlingly inappropriate, with Mariah suddenly announcing that she and her husband were having problems. Franklin awkwardly says she needs rest and she lays down on the couch.
Amis once again starts ranting in the Zocalo, saying that the Copernicus brought a “soldier of darkness” to the station, one he’s faced before. Amis was with a unit that was wiped out on a small moon during the war, with Amis the only survivor. Even as Garibaldi tries to calm Amis down, a lurker in downbelow is attacked and killed.
Franklin’s autopsy reveals that the lurker was killed the exact same way as Will. Meanwhile, Garibaldi has determined that the Copernicus passed within the gravitational pull of the very same moon where Amis’ unit was attacked. Franklin has an alibi for Mariah’s whereabouts when the lurker was attacked, which amazingly doesn’t get him reprimanded, but Sheridan insists on a 24-hour watch on her, just to be sure.
A council meeting is called, and the Markab ambassador explains that they think a soldier of darkness has been brought by the Copernicus. A great darkness was defeated long ago, and it is now marshaling its forces for a return. Mollari dismisses the entire notion; G’Kar is genuinely interested in what the Markab have to say; Sheridan doesn’t know what to think, but promises to do everything he can to make sure there are no more murders.
Garibaldi decides to use Amis to lure the creature. Amis explains that the creature left him alive to torment and feed off him. Amis runs away from Garibaldi, hoping to lure the creature where it can’t hurt anyone.
Mariah says that whatever she’s been hallucinating is something that fed off her—and now is feeding off the people on B5. Garibaldi then asks her to do what he wanted to do with Amis before he buggered off, and she agrees to try to find it for him, with Franklin tagging along.
There’s weapons fire in Brown Sector, and our heroes are able to stop the creature—who is tormenting Amis some more—by a crossfire of PPGs.
Amis survives, being treated in medlab. Mariah decides to return to Earth to grieve and get her life back together. Ivanova investigates and discovers that the soldier of darkness changed Copernicus’s course to Z’ha’dum. However, when it came proximate to B5, the ship’s automatic programming took over and changed course to a human facility.
We close on G’Kar looking at a passage in the Book of G’Quan, which includes an image of the soldier of darkness.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan, dork that he is, recognizes the hundred-year-old ship for what it is.
The household god of frustration. Apparently Garibaldi fought in the Earth-Minbari War as a ground troop, a fact that has somehow managed not to come up at any point prior to this.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari’s entire attitude toward both Amis’ rants and the Markab claims is disgusted disbelief, which is disingenuous, to say the least…
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar is sure that he’s starting to get a line on the ancient foe that’s coming back. He’s also spectacularly rude to Mariah, and he quotes Yogi Berra while being so. (“The future isn’t what it used to be.”)
The Shadowy Vorlons. Apparently, the Shadows have helpers who’ve been just hanging out waiting for the call home…
No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. Franklin is creepily lusting after Mariah from jump, starting with his stroking her hair in a manner that is not medical before she even wakes up.
Welcome aboard. Anne-Marie Johnson is blandness personified as Mariah, but the big guest here is the great Dwight Schultz—best known for his roles as “Howling Mad” Murdock on The A-Team and as Reg Barclay on various Star Trek productions, and who lately has been doing a ton of voice acting work—giving us his usual fine job of portraying a complex crazy as Amis.
Trivial matters. G’Kar has been concerned that an ancient enemy mentioned in the Book of G’Quan is returning, as seen in “Revelations.”
This is the first mention of Garibaldi’s past military service.
This is the only script for B5 by Scott Frost.
We see a Drazi in the Zocalo, but he is not wearing a purple sash for some reason, as per the events of “The Geometry of Shadows.”
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“I have walked in the valley of—”
“Good! Keep on walking!”
—Amis trying to preach to G’Kar and G’Kar refusing delivery of same.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Evil sometimes wears a pleasant face.” I’ll take “Episodes That Have Aged Really Badly” for $1000, Alex…
Seriously, I felt like I needed a shower after watching the episode. It started with Franklin stroking Mariah’s hair while she was unconscious in medlab, and it just got worse and worse, from him taking her to his quarters while she was unconscious when there’s a perfectly good medlab to bring her to, to the kiss and then letting her stay overnight in his quarters. There is nothing ethical in any nanosecond of Franklin’s behavior, and a lot that is creepy and oogy, and I found myself for the second time in this rewatch (after “Believers”) wishing that someone would report Franklin to the EarthGov equivalent of the AMA. Not aiding this disaster is a remarkably charisma-free performance from Anne-Marie Johnson.
Also at this point I’m suffering from some serious foreshadowing fatigue. This is the sixth episode since we started getting warnings about a coming darkness in “Chrysalis,” and I find myself feeling like I’m in a Monty Python sketch where they cut to a crowd that shouts, “GET ON WITH IT!” The Markab ambassador this episode is just the latest, after Delenn, Lennier, G’Kar, and Elric—everyone’s just so sure there’s this nasty-ass thing coming, so you’d think we’d have more information. I know that J. Michael Straczynski is never happier than when he’s fulfilling prophecies, but I find myself growing incredibly weary of the portentous dialogue promising awful things at some vague future point.
Luckily, the episode is redeemed by a typically brilliant performance by Dwight Schultz as Amis. Schultz has always been able to manage a perfect combination of subtle and over-the-top and somehow making it work, and Amis is a particularly strong example of Schultz’s strong suit. Amis is at once ridiculous and tragic, and Schultz absolutely nails it.
Next week: “A Spider in the Web.”
