I think your review summed up this episode very well. What would have been an extraordinary cheat on most shows gets pulled off well by a talented cast and crew, so it works.

@avclub-dc10fce584f2cdf09d6690e0f2883227:disqus None of the First Ones seem to like each other all that much, but they weren't going to do anything about the Vorlons until Lorien asked.

If he liked dead things, he'd have been a forensic pathologist :-)

@avclub-79557cb93066f4470b8cee6e9110f757:disqus 
 I'm taking that to mean that you regard Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth as the book equivalents of unpersons?

Big Spoilers

Isn't it implied in the later Foundation books that a driving motivation for the Foundation is so that mankind is strong and united enough to survive an inevitable encounter with extra-galactic alien intelligences.

@avclub-146bc30c345d31f3468fec764a1970e1:disqus  There's a lot of potential in that idea.

@avclub-bbb04f2a70775131fa0397bbdb4c03de:disqus Don't forget that they wiped out New Bajor, not because it was a threat, and not because they couldn't have gotten the planet back by diplomatic means (it was a brand new colony) but just as a demonstration of their power and ruthlessness.

So if you got a message from the ants in your yard, asking for help against your neighbor (whom you have a distant but longstanding relationship with) and the ants in his yard, how would you react? And would taunts from the ants in your yard change your mind?

A Londo focused version would probably require a little more early spadework to make the desire for a restoration of Centauri greatness a more sympathetic one. Faustian bargains are more compelling when the Faust wants something the audience can identify with.

More Spoilers

@avclub-9fda17cadd97a91b294831b496bcb3d0:disqus Was there a particular program or aspect of the Clinton administration JMS was thinking of?

@avclub-7e889e891520b7c5763271f21d3261b9:disqus Well, one recent example I've heard about. White supremacists using zombie == "person of color" to code talk about their paranoid race war preparations as zombie apocalypse fantasies.

Oops.

I really struggle with this show because I just don't care for Ike. I don't find him sympathetic and I don't think the show has really demonstrated that he lives up to his reputation. He talks a good game and there are lots of scenes to demonstrate his determination to be successful, but we don't see much of him…

@samatict:disqus Good points.

On the one hand, Ted and Peggy were super-flirty in the Ocean Spray brainstorm meeting. On the other hand, Peggy was the only one we saw making positive contributions.

Pretty sure it was just birdshot. Buckshot would have taken his head off. Still wins, though.

It's a safe bet something like that was said to the GM guys at some point…the customer is always right after all.

@samatict:disqus I agree, that differences like that would be very interesting things to show. Alien Nation's "our sour milk is their alcohol" thing was a great example of doing that well.