Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “Racing Mars” Marcus and Franklin meet their liaison to the Mars resistance, while Sheridan confronts Garibaldi about his attitude. By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on November 10, 2025 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “Racing Mars”Written by J. Michael StraczynskiDirected by Jesus TreviñoSeason 4, Episode 10Production episode 410Original air date: April 21, 1997 It was the dawn of the third age… Ivanova meets with Sheridan to discuss their supply issues. With EarthGov’s quarantine in effect, and the punishment for violating it by any human being brutal, even black market sources are steering clear. Ivanova says she’s already working on a solution, which she’s been doing on her own to give Sheridan deniability. She then relieves Sheridan of command on medical grounds, as he hasn’t taken any personal time in nine months, during which he’s died, been resurrected, and fought a war, and maybe he should take a break before the inevitable showdown with Earth. Franklin and Cole are in the cargo hold of a a liner heading toward Mars, with Cole making Franklin batshit with his game of “I Spy.” Cole then discovers someone sneaking about. He calls himself Captain Jack, and he claims to be the brother of the ship’s captain, who lets him hitch a ride periodically. He also offers superior food to their meal-bar rations: Insta-Heats, which actually taste and smell good. Cole insists they not only not take them, but keep their distance from Captain Jack, as they’re to make no contact with anyone until they meet their Mars Resistance liaison. Eventually, however, Jack reveals that he’s the liaison, uttering the appropriate code phrase. He didn’t identify himself right away out of a sense of caution. He gives them the identicards they’ll need on Mars—they’re for a couple, Jim Fennerman and Daniel Lane. Sheridan tries to relax by watching TV, but all the Earth channels have been blacked out except for ISN. He puts that on, only to see a rerun of Dan Randall’s hit piece. After watching Garibaldi’s evisceration of Sheridan, the captain decides to confront his erstwhile chief of security. Garibaldi makes no apology for his words—and isn’t freedom of speech what they were supposed to be fighting for? Sheridan counters that they’re having enough trouble with Clark’s propaganda war without Garibaldi giving him ammunition for his side. Their discussion gets very heated, with both sides yelling, and Sheridan making it clear that he won’t tolerate Garibaldi endangering the station. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Some very skeevy-looking guys observe this, led by a guy named Wade. Later they approach Garibaldi with an offer to help deal with Sheridan, though they frame it as “helping” the captain. Captain Jack takes Cole and Franklin on a tube across Mars. Jack says they’ve heard all kinds of outlandish stories about B5, including that they’d abandoned Mars. Franklin assures them that they haven’t abandoned them, they’ve just been busy fighting a war—Jack has no idea what he’s talking about. He’d heard rumors about a war, but nothing he really believed. Cole is rather annoyed to learn that he’s finally a war hero and nobody seems to know about it… Ivanova meets with four smugglers, who haven’t been operating much around B5 lately. They explain that EarthGov’s penalties for doing business anywhere near B5 are too harsh to risk. Plus, Nightwatch has made gun-running damn near impossible. Ivanova offers them a deal: bring legit supplies—food, medicine, and so on—to B5 and they’ll have the protection of B5’s starfuries when they’re in the general vicinity and have full access to B5’s repair facilities for their ships. Captain Jack leads Cole and Franklin down some underground corridors belonging to abandoned mines. They’re met at gunpoint by members of the Mars Resistance, led by someone identified only as “Number Two.” The communiqué from B5 was fragmentary, and they also have news of a hit squad coming for them, so they’re playing everything safe. They ask for Cole and Franklin’s real identicards, and they’ll verify those against their DNA profile to make sure they’re really Marcus Cole and Stephen Franklin. While they wait, Captain Jack shows Franklin a picture of his daughter, complete with her address on the back of it, which he says is there because he sometimes forgets it. He also insists on keeping his coat on, despite how hot it is in the tunnels. Delenn approaches Sheridan in the Zen garden, where he’s stewing about the confrontation with Garibaldi. To his horror, she has yet another Minbari ritual that prospective couples must undergo, though he relents when he finds out that it’s to spend a night discovering each others’ pleasures. Wah-hey! Number Two returns along with Number One: the identicards show that they aren’t Cole and Franklin. However, before anything else can happen, Captain Jack shakily raises a PPG and aims it at Number One. Franklin tackles her to the ground, which saves her life, while Cole manages to shoot Jack in the shoulder, which knocks an alien creature off it. Jack runs away, dropping the real identicards on the ground. The resistance folks capture the alien, which is now dead, and Franklin examines it. It’s a parasite, with fibres that wrap around the nervous system. Jack probably was being controlled. In retrospect, he dropped hints that something was odd, and also provided a method of notifying his next of kin with the picture of his daughter. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Number One tries contacting him via his comm headset, which he still has. He’s in a tube, and he’s stolen a grenade. Number One tries to convince him that it’s over, the alien parasite is dead, but Jack says that it’ll just grow back. So he blows himself up with a grenade. Sheridan tries to mend fences with Garibaldi, and the talk is almost reasonable until an alien woman practically genuflects before Sheridan. Garibaldi loses his temper, violently grabbing the woman and saying he’s not a messiah or a religious figure, he’s just a person. Sheridan urges Garibaldi to let go of her, as he’s hurting her. Garibaldi asks if Sheridan likes this adulation, oblivious to the physical harm he’s causing. Sheridan puts a hand on Garibaldi’s shoulder to get him to leave her alone, and Garibaldi decks him. Sheridan calls off security, which is more than happy to arrest their former boss for assaulting their current CO, but Sheridan says this one’s free. Next time, he’ll knock Garibaldi’s block off. After Sheridan walks off, Garibaldi is visibly pissed at himself. Sheridan goes to Delenn’s quarters for the pleasure ritual, only to be rather appalled to find a crowded room. There are a mess of Minbari—including Lennier—present as witnesses, apparently. Delenn drags a reluctant Sheridan into the bedroom. Number One tells Cole and Franklin that the resistance leaders are all going to gather, but it’ll take a couple of days. In the meantime, they’ve made a reservation at the Red Planet Hotel in the names of their assumed identities: it’s the honeymoon suite. Garibaldi meets with Wade, saying he’s in, that Sheridan has gotten out of control. But he won’t hurt him. Wade assures with a hilarious lack of conviction that they just want to help Sheridan, no really, honest.    Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan spends his enforced vacation trying really hard to make nice with Garibaldi, also trying really hard to deal with having his sexual preferences displayed for many Minbari to see. He doesn’t do so great with either… Ivanova is God. Ivanova pitch to the smugglers is a clever mix of enticing—protection and repairs—and enlightened self-interest—they’d only be smuggling nice things—and also threats—she makes it clear that their ships will need those free repairs if they step out of line. Her pitch is sufficiently successful that one of the smugglers propositions her. The household god of frustration. It’s obvious that Garibaldi is being manipulated in some way. His body language and facial expressions make it clear that his initial response in the immediate aftermath of his second confrontation with Sheridan is regret and self-directed anger at how badly he’s screwed up. But the next time we see him, he’s telling Wade how dangerous Sheridan is, which is a completely different response, and at odds with reality. If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Minbari really do have a ritual for every damn thing… We live for the one, we die for the one. Cole gets to show off his badassery twice, once when he finds and captures Captain Jack in the cargo hold, and again when he takes out his guard before shooting the Keeper off Jack’s shoulder. The Shadowy Vorlons. We see another Keeper like the one that attached itself to the Centauri Regent (and Mollari in the future) on Captain Jack, and it’s apparently trying to break the Mars Resistance. This is in keeping with the Shadows’ allies still trying to help Clark out. Credit: Warner Bros. Television No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. The morning after the pleasure ritual, Lennier and Sheridan encounter each other in a transport tube. Lennier looks at Sheridan questioningly and asks, “‘Woo-hoo!’?” Sheridan just looks embarrassed. Also there’s some very obvious chemistry between Franklin and Number One… Welcome aboard. Donovan Scott plays Captain Jack, while Clayton Landey plays Number Two and Geoff Meed and Brian Tahash play the two smugglers with speaking parts. Carrie Dobro—who will later star in A Call to Arms and Crusade as Dureena Nafeel—appears as the Brakiri woman. Enough archive footage from “The Illusion of Truth” is used to give Jeff Griggs another guest star credit as Randall. We also get two new recurring characters. Marjorie Monaghan debuts the role of Number One, while Mark Schneider kicks off the role of Wade. Monaghan will return next time in “Lines of Communications,” while Schneider will be back in “Conflicts of Interest.” Trivial matters. This is the third time we’ve seen a Keeper, following the one on Mollari in the future of “War Without End, Part 2” and the one on the Regent at the end of “Epiphanies.” At one point, Ivanova and the smugglers mention that one of them smuggled in a compound that made Garibaldi bald, providing a plot reason—beyond, “he’s going balder by the nanosecond,” anyhow—why Jerry Doyle started just shaving his head. Garibaldi refers to the pope with a feminine pronoun, a bit that, according to J. Michael Straczynski, resulted in many angry responses from Catholics all over the world. A Pope Bernadette II will be referenced in an episode of Crusade. The echoes of all of our conversations. “Just my luck—first time in my life I’m a war hero, and nobody knows about it! And worst of all, I’m married to you!” “Well, that’s not my idea.” “Oh, you say that now—tell that to your mother. She never stopped calling us about it. ‘So, when’s the big day? I’ve got to pick out patterns. Your father isn’t going to live forever!’ And on and on and on and on.” —Cole taking the piss out of Franklin. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “And that’s when I killed him, your honor.” I have not been kind to the late Richard Biggs in this rewatch. I have come through this not liking Biggs’ acting much, and especially not liking the character of Franklin. But I recall having fond memories of the Mars Resistance subplot, and while a lot of that is due to my abject love of Marjorie Monaghan, this episode reminded me that a big part of it was the easy chemistry between Biggs and Jason Carter. This chemistry extended to real life, as the pair were close friends all the way to Biggs’ tragic death. And that really helps sell the Mars part of the episode. Which is good, as that part of the plot has two major casting issues—which, luckily, won’t affect the future of the storyline, as this is the only appearance by each. Clayton Landey mistakes snarling for acting in his role as Number Two, and Donovan Scott and his hilariously wandering accent is just a little too precious as Captain Jack. He definitely ranks way behind Sparrow, Harkness, and the guy in the Billy Joel song when it comes to fictional Captain Jacks… I find myself wondering what the plan was for Garibaldi’s betrayal before Michael O’Hare had to leave the show. The Sinclair-Garibaldi friendship was a cornerstone of the first season—indeed, Garibaldi only had his job because the commander was his drinking buddy—and having Garibaldi betray the station would have had much more weight if it was Sinclair he was betraying. But the advantage of it being Sheridan is that the relationship between the two of them was never particularly strong. Yes, they worked together, and generally trusted each other, but the closeness that Garibaldi had with Sinclair has never been there with Sheridan. And so Garibaldi’s turning on him actually has a certain sincerity to it that it wouldn’t have had with Sinclair. Of course, it’s a bit spoiled by the fact that we know that Garibaldi’s being controlled by something or someone. It might have been more effective if we didn’t know that about him, and thought this might be a legitimate character choice. Especially since Garibaldi’s words do have the ring of truth. Since returning from Z’ha’dum, Sheridan has been a lot more high-handed and arrogant. The rest of the episode generally works well. Ivanova’s solution to the supply issue is clever and well handled. Sheridan’s expression of Minbari ritual fatigue hangs a lantern on the rather ridiculous number of rituals that the Minbari seem to have for every damn thing—plus “‘Woo-hoo!’?” still makes me laugh, though that’s primarily due to Bill Mumy’s letter-perfect deadpan. Next week: “Lines of Communication”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “Racing Mars” appeared first on Reactor.