While sleeping over at Laz's house after a party on Friday, I dreamt an entire episode of Babylon 5, complete with next-episode trailer. I dunno what sort of sad geekhood urge this is, dreaming in fan-fic.
Primarily, the episode (no title that I can recall, sadly) was a flashback to the days just before Sinclair arrived on Babylon 5; it covered the events around his appointment as commander and ambassador, and lead to his arrival at the station. This all connected, at the end of the episode, with Sinclair telling the ambassadors (primarily Delenn, that I recall) about his imminent departure from B-5.
The part I remember most clearly was the middle-- call it act three-- in which Sinclair and his son (yes, he had a son in the dream; about twelve or fourteen. DS9 bleedover? Maybe. I haven't watched DS9 in well over a year) are going to the shuttle which will take them from Earth to B-5. They are with a whole bunch of people and the transport bus arrives to take outbound passengers to the airfield. The bus is a Delorean. About thirty people cram into it; Sinclair and son decide to walk to the field instead, as they are carrying very little luggage.
On the way, son has to go to the bathroom, so they duck into a restaurant. While Sinclair waits in the lobby, some guy comes up to him and starts to get on his case-- "What kind of idiot are you, Sinclair? Do you know who's heading up security on Babylon 5? Garibaldi! How could they be so STUPID?" Turns out this guy was head of security on Bablyons one through three; he didn't get a chance at the job for numbers four or five-- no surprise, considering what a lousy job he must have done on the first three, eh?
Sinclair tries to rationally talk the guy down, and vouches for Garibaldi's skill, but then this couple at the nearest table start to argue, or maybe they were nosing in on the conversation-- I don't quite remember, but they start to interfere with Sinclair's Big Speech, so he shuts them up by giving them a bag of Starburst fruit chews. I was upset to see yet another bit of product placement on the show, myself, but the couple falls upon the candy like a pair of ravenous wolves, and the son returns from the bathroom, so Sinclair and boy leave.
At the airfield, they board this gorgeous, ultra-sexy delta-wing ship that will take them up to the jumpship, which is in orbit. At the boarding gate, an armed guard tells them "Have a safe journey, Commander". The guard was Morden, the shadow agent. Threads within threads. I was genuinely spooked out.
As the transport waits in a parking orbit for the jumpship to pick them up, a trio of Earthforce heavy cruisers comes out of the jumpgate and cruise past the transport. These ships were pretty sexy, too; my dreams render Toaster graphics very nicely. The crews of the cruisers apparently know that Sinclair is on the shuttle they are passing, because they've painted insulting and sarcastic messages on the sides of the ship. The only one I can remember was "Good luck, motherfucker. Love, Earthforce." Sinclair accepts the abuse quietly; he is above this.
After they jump to the station, there was a bit more about his first day there, but I cannot remember this part, nor can I remember much about the end of the episode, except that I think there was a part that explained why he no longer has his son on the station.
On the whole, a good episode-- touches the overall story arc nicely in a couple of places (the touch with Morden wishing them a safe trip really blew me away), some excellent CGI, and some solid acting from Michael O'hare, especially when he quietly ignores the spectacle that the Earthforce cruisers are trying to make of him.
The next-episode trailer was primarily a CGI-fest, but boy, was it nice. I hope we actually get to see something like this along the line-- at one point, a band of Starfuries were strafing ground targets on an airless moon, and they're whipping along just above the rocky surface when suddenly they reached an enormous canyon that just yawned open under them. Down in the bottom of the canyon were a whole mess of armored vehicles, which immediately opened up on them. The 'furies responded by dropping straight down on them, firing back as the canyon floor rushed up.
My head was spinning when I woke up.