Column Babylon 5 Rewatch Babylon 5 Rewatch: “A Tragedy of Telepaths” Lochley attempts to negotiate with the telepaths, and G’Kar finds an old friend in the Centauri palace… By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on May 4, 2026 Credit: Warner Bros. Television Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Warner Bros. Television “A Tragedy of Telepaths”Written by J. Michael StaczynskiDirected by Tony DowSeason 5, Episode 10Production episode 510Original air date: March 25, 1998 It was the dawn of the third age… We open with Lochley providing a personal log voiceover bringing us up to speed: the telepaths have locked themselves in downbelow, and Lochley is stuck dealing with it alone, as Sheridan is far too busy dealing with the various IA ambassadors, who are pissed about their cargo ships being attacked. She has only one solution that she thinks will work: she has CnC put in a call to Bester. Lochley asks Allan for an update. The problem is that every time a welder starts to make progress in cutting through the bulkheads, the telepaths make him think something’s wrong—the latest is the worker is convinced that there’s a bomb in the wall—at which point they have to get another cutter and start all over again. After telling Allan to keep trying, she announces that she’s going to go through the very tiny maintenance hatch herself to go talk to them. Allan objects, she overrules his objection. On Centauri Prime, Mollari is bumfuzzled by the fact that the military’s production budget has increased. This usually only happens when they’re at war—which they aren’t at the moment. G’Kar suggests that the Centauri have decided to invade themselves. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Mollari is revolted by the fact that G’Kar is eating fresh spoo. He saw a cart taking it to a wing of the palace and grabbed a bowl. But only Narns can tolerate eating fresh spoo—Centauri can only eat it after it’s processed. Mollari reveals that the wing of the palace the cart was being taken to includes the dungeon. Realizing that the spoo is probably for a Narn prisoner—of which there shouldn’t be any anymore—G’Kar demands that they investigate. They check the cells to find Na’Toth. She’s been there for a couple of years now, having been on the Narn homeworld when it was bombarded. She was brought to Centauri Prime for “entertainment.” She’s been in the cell for some time, and Mollari—after swearing up and down to G’Kar that he had no idea she was there—assumes that she was forgotten and slipped through the cracks. The problem is, the emperor is the one who put her there, which means that Mollari, who is the prime minister and therefore of lesser rank, cannot countermand it. Only the Regent can, and he’s not likely to be an ally in this. But Mollari does promise G’Kar and Na’Toth that he will find a way to get her out. On B5, Lochley makes it through the ductwork and is taken to Byron, who telepathically encouraged her to come. However, Byron makes it clear that they won’t leave their improvised bunker, and they also won’t give up the telepaths who are still roaming free on the station. Lochley asks Byron’s followers to come peacefully with her, but nobody takes her up on it. Frustrated, she asks Byron why he summoned her here if he wasn’t going to help, and he says he wanted to her to know directly what Byron’s thoughts and plans were. Lochley has been fair to them, even when she’s disagreed, and Byron appreciates that. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Garibaldi and Sheridan, after discussing Lochley’s batshit plan, talk about the cargo ship attacks, talk about the latest wrinkle in the attacks on cargo ships: the Drazi found a fragment from a Brakiri ship in their latest attack. On Centauri Prime, G’Kar informs Mollari that he has found a transport that will rendezvous with them when they return to B5 and take Na’Toth back to Narn. Now they just have to smuggle her out somehow. A woman comes to give Mollari some news, and the prime minster gets an idea, asking the woman to loan him her clothes… On B5, the Drazi ambassador accuses the Brakiri of being behind the attacks. But then the Gaim ambassador announces that they found a fragment from a Drazi ship in the wreckage from an attack on them. Sheridan points out that this feels like a setup and also adds that they examined the wreckage, and found that the fragments were cut, not blown off by weapons fire. The respective nations are still massing their militaries, so Sheridan makes it clear that the White Star fleet is watching them. The ambassadors are not happy about any of this. On Centauri Prime, Mollari goes to Na’Toth’s cell and orders the guard to stop guarding her cell. There’s to be no food or water delivered there henceforth, and in three days, the cell is to be walled off. Na’Toth believes that this means her death, but then Mollari and G’Kar remove her from the cell, dressed now in Centauri finery, along with a veil. They head toward the transport, Mollari being loud and obnoxious and seemingly drunk, while flirting with the woman who appears to be a Centauri female, albeit with her face covered. They make it to the transport, with no one the wiser, and Na’Toth is sent home. Bester arrives on B5. The rogue telepaths who are still at large sense his presence, and assume (correctly) that the bloodhounds aren’t far behind. They head to the armory. Meanwhile, Bester is brought to where the cutter was working and he removes the image of the bomb from his head and he also “pushes” the telepaths away from the wall. Credit: Warner Bros. Television However, the rogue telepaths then ambush Bester, Allan, and the rest. Byron senses this and is saddened that people are being shot and killed in his name. Bester’s bloodhounds arrive soon thereafter, and we end as we began, with Lochley providing a personal log, expressing her sad belief that there is no way any of this will end well. Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is not having a very good time, as the IA is already starting to fall apart thanks to these attacks. Never work with your ex. Allan wants Lochley to take a PPG with her to meet the telepaths. Lochley rightly points out that there are a lot more of them and a PPG won’t help her if they decide to attack her. Better to be unarmed and non-provocative. The household god of frustration. Garibaldi gives a speech talking about how history isn’t defined by peace, it’s defined by wars, because wars are more exciting. In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari tells a story from when he was a child about a guard who always stood in the garden. Apparently, years ago, the emperor’s daughter was worried about a particular flower and so ordered a guard to stand over it to make sure it remained unharmed. The young woman eventually forgot about the flower and the flower itself died—but the order was never rescinded, and so a guard continued to be assigned to that part of the garden thenceforth. He tells that story to illustrate why he can’t simply order Na’Toth to be freed. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. Na’Toth was on the Narn homeworld when it was bombarded. She has spent the last couple of years in a cell not knowing that Narn has been freed. She tells Mollari that she’d kill him if she had the strength, and Mollari allows as how she’d have to wait in line. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. Bester gets to say “I told you so” to Lochley when she summons him to the station to deal with Byron and his gaggle. No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. The servant who delivers the message to Mollari and then is asked to remove her clothes is very accommodating, as she apparently did many a sexual favor for Cartagia. Both Mollari and G’Kar waggle their eyebrows at the whole thing, and it’s all very yucky. Welcome aboard. Several recurring characters in this one: Walter Koenig, back from “Strange Relations” as Bester; Robin Atkin Downes, back from “In the Kingdom of the Blind” as Byron; Jonathan Chapman, back from “Day of the Dead” as the Brakiri ambassador; Kim Strauss, back from “The Paragon of Animals” as the Drazi ambassador; and Leigh J. McCloskey, debuting the role of Thomas. Koenig, Downes, and McCloskey will be back next time in “Phoenix Rising,” while Chapman and Strauss will return in “And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder.” But the big guest is the return of Julie Caitlin Brown as Na’Toth. The character last appeared in “Acts of Sacrifice,” played by Mary Kay Adams, while Brown last appeared in the role in “Chrysalis.” (Brown also played Corey in “There All the Honor Lies.”) Trivial matters. Na’Toth was last mentioned in “And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place,” but was not seen, and her involvement in the events of the episode were purely fictional to trick both Vir and Refa. We see flashbacks to the bombing of the Narn homeworld from “The Long, Twilight Struggle.” Bester was last on the station to take Byron and his people into custody in “Strange Relations,” but was put off 60 days by quarantine regulations. It apparently has been less than two months since then, since Bester is brought back prematurely…. The echoes of all of our conversations. “With everyone now on the same side perhaps you’re planning to invade yourselves for a change. I find the idea curiously appealing. Once you’ve finished killing each other, we can plow under all the buildings and plant rows of flowers that spell out the words TOO ANNOYING TO LIVE in letters big enough to be seen from space.” —G’Kar’s response to the news that Centauri military production has increased. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “This place is one long exercise in frustration.” The Centauri Prime half of this episode is pretty much just paperwork. Na’Toth’s fate has been a mystery since the character disappeared. It’s completely watchable, because any time you’ve got Peter Jurasik and Andreas Katsulas on screen together, it’s at the very least watchable. And I love the story Mollari tells to illustrate why he can’t just order Na’Toth freed, because it was an order given by the emperor and a mere prime minister can’t gainsay that. But the storyline mainly shows just how badly the show failed the character of Na’Toth. While Vir and Lennier were both developed nicely, nothing of consequence was ever done with Na’Toth, though half-hearted attempts were made in her inaugural appearance in “The Parliament of Dreams,” and also in “Deathwalker,” but that was really it. And then we hardly saw her in season two. Allegedly this was due to the new actor not playing the part well, but I find that impossible to credit, having seen Mary Kay Adams in other things. In particular, she excelled while acting alongside the great Armin Shimerman in two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. She could have done wonders, had she been given actual material to work with. And to exacerbate the show’s failing the character: Na’Toth doesn’t actually play any kind of role in this episode. She’s totally passive, sitting in the cell and telling what happened to her in an exhausted monotone—appropriate, given what she’s been through, but it has the result of making her a sideline in what’s supposed to be her story. As for the stuff back on the station, those two plotlines have their own issues. For starters, the ability to determine whether or not a piece of metal has been separated from the rest of what it was attached to via an explosion, or instead via being cut, existed on twentieth-century Earth when this show was produced. So how is it that these space-faring, multiplanet nations were able to determine the provenance of those pieces of debris without noticing the fact that they were cut away rather than blown away? As a setup, this is hilariously primitive and easy to see through and the fact that the Brakiri, Drazi, and Gaim can’t see through it is yet another example of writing the species who aren’t represented in the opening credits as morons, a writers crutch this show has indulged in way too often. Then we have the telepath plotline, which is finally moving toward its endgame, which comes as something of a relief, as this story thread has long since worn out its welcome. What should be a dramatic confrontation between the station commander and the leader of the rogue telepaths is instead a contest to see who can be more boring. (Robin Atkin Downes “wins” by a perfectly coiffed hair.) Bringing Walter Koenig back just serves to show up the inadequacies of the other actors in that prong of the plot. Interestingly enough, the best work Tracy Scoggins does is in her two voiceovers at the top and bottom of the episode. They both do a very good job of setting the tone, the opening for the rest of the episode and the closing for the next one. Next week: “Phoenix Rising.”[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: “A Tragedy of Telepaths” appeared first on Reactor.