Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

Two-hour TV movie. The crew discovers a mysterious, ancient artifact in hyperspace. Shari Belafonte as Dr. Trent.

P5 Rating: 8.05

Production number: TNTCF1
Original air date: July 19, 1998

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jesus Treviño
Novelization by Peter David

Reader reviews of the novelization, and online ordering, can be found at Amazon.com.

Plot Points

• Over a million years ago, the Vorlons, believing themselves just one step short of godhood, decided to build a device to open a doorway to what they believed was the well of souls, the source of life. The device, similar in basic function to a jumpgate, did open a hole to another place: a universe inhabited by an alien race even more powerful than the Vorlons, a race that believed itself the only intelligence worthy of existence. The aliens were extremely powerful telepaths, able to take control of many of the Vorlons and turn them against their own kind. Eventually the aliens were beaten back, but before the device could be destroyed, some of the Vorlons under alien influence flung it into hyperspace. The Vorlons never found it.
• The Vorlons implanted Lyta with a memory fragment detailing the story of the device, and instructions for its destruction should it be found. They also left her with memories of some of their other mistakes.
• Interplanetary Expeditions operates outside the bounds of the Earth Alliance regulations that govern most companies.
• Babylon 5 carries a small supply of tactical nuclear weapons small enough to be carried by hand.
• Zack wants to date Lyta, and has gone so far as to tell her so.

Unanswered Questions

• What were the Vorlons' other mistakes? What else does Lyta know about Vorlon history?
• How long did it take the Vorlons to vanquish the aliens?
• What did the Vorlon writing on the artifact say?
• Who built the original set of jumpgates?
• What was the alien city, and what was the spire in its center? Why were so many people having visions of it? Possibly the city was on the alien homeworld, but why would they broadcast images of their world to strangers?
• How much of Dr. Trent's supposition about thirdspace was correct? Barring the obvious problem of the alien race, could thirdspace be used as she described, like a faster version of hyperspace? Are there other spaces beyond thirdspace, perhaps an infinite number of them?
• Does Lyta remember anything Zack said to her?

Analysis

• This story took place after the Shadow War, but before the declaration of war against Earth. That puts it between "Into the Fire" and "Moments of Transition."

  Other clues allow it to be placed more precisely. It took place after "The Illusion of Truth" because that was the last time Zack wore his Earth Alliance uniform. Just after Zack was fitted with his new uniform in "Atonement," Delenn greeted Callenn and told him she'd be ready to leave for Minbar in one day, less than the amount of time elapsed in this story (Sheridan remarked to Trent that she'd had five days to examine the artifact.) It couldn't have taken place after "Atonement" since Dr. Franklin left in that episode before Delenn returned; the two of them weren't on the station at the same time again until after the declaration of war.

  That puts "Thirdspace" between the first and second scenes of "Atonement" (a slight inconsistency since Callenn's ship can be seen to arrive in the opening shot, before Zack's fitting) unless Zack's visit to the Minbari tailors wasn't the first time he wore the uniform. If his visit was just an adjustment, possibly a result of being in fistfights in "Thirdspace," the story takes place between "The Illusion of Truth" and "Atonement."

• The raiders fighting Ivanova's squadron were attempting to steal a shipment of Quantium 40, which is used in jumpgate construction ("Mind War.") That resonates with the discussion between Trent and Morishi about the building of jumpgates.

• Why didn't the White Stars open jump points for Ivanova's squadron after the fight with the raiders, rather than forcing her to travel slowly to the nearest jumpgate? One answer is that Starfuries aren't equipped to navigate in hyperspace unless they start off from a known location and can follow a beacon.

• How did Dr. Trent know that the Vorlons enhanced Lyta's telepathic abilities? One possibility is that Bester, or someone else in the Psi Corps, told IPX about it. Bester discovered Lyta's enhancement in "Epiphanies."

• In Ivanova's dream, Vir was caressed by women while Ivanova was killed. That may have been because Vir was willing to give in to the alien influence, while Ivanova insisted on questioning it. He was rewarded for his compliance while she was punished for her resistance.

• How did the Vorlons get into thirdspace to begin with? If, as Lyta said, the door has to be opened from both sides, that would imply that the aliens in thirdspace already had their side open and were waiting for someone from normal space to reciprocate. Or maybe they somehow become aware of what the Vorlons were up to, and opened their side at roughly the same time. Either way, they've been waiting for the door to reopen for over a million years, though of course time may not pass at the same rate in thirdspace and normal space.

• The fighters that emerged from the gateway appeared similar in basic form to Vorlon ships. Were they examples of ancient Vorlon ship design? The aliens might have kept possessed Vorlons around to use as cannon fodder in case the gate opened again, on the assumption that it might be the Vorlons doing the opening.

• Were the Vorlons alone in their fight against the aliens? Given the potential danger, it's possible the Vorlons found themselves fighting alongside the Shadows and other First Ones against the alien forces; the Shadows would have as much of a vested interest as anyone else in seeing the aliens beaten back (though it'd be consistent with Vorlon arrogance to not mention anyone else's involvement to Sheridan.)

• It may have been the conflict with the alien race that prompted the Vorlons to invest effort into researching and developing telepathy. The Vorlons were almost certainly strong telepaths before the conflict, though, since Lyta mentioned that they had already been making themselves appear as beings of light when they visited other worlds.

• Though it was never stated outright, the purpose of concentrating fire on the front of the artifact (which itself begs the question of which side was the "front") was probably to redirect shield energy away from the other side. That's evidenced by the fact that a hole opened in the force field in the rear when Ivanova ordered everyone to fire at the same time.

• Why wasn't Draal's help enlisted? The Great Machine might not have had enough power to destroy the artifact outright, but its weaponry would presumably have been helpful in the assault. Given the high stakes -- a powerful, implacable enemy even the Vorlons considered a threat -- it's not clear what reason Sheridan would have had for holding Draal in reserve.

• What were the creatures in the artifact? Were they members of the alien race? Did they arrive after the artifact was powered on, or were they lying dormant for millenia? The fact that they had the same shape as the shadow in Lyta's vision, and their tentacles looked like the one in Ivanova's dream, suggests that they were from thirdspace.

• This was the fourth time Sheridan used nuclear weapons against vastly superior alien forces; he used nuclear mines to destroy the Minbari cruiser Black Star ("In the Beginning") and a Shadow city ("Z'ha'dum.") He also used nukes to get the attention of the Vorlons and Shadows at Coriana 6 ("Into the Fire.")

Notes

• Chronologically, the movie takes place during season four, after "Into the Fire."

• According to producer George Johnsen, "Thirdspace" contains more new special effects shots than all of season one combined.

• Noted science-fiction illustrator Wayne Barlowe, author of "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials," designed the artifact.

• Deuce also appeared in the season-one episode "Grail."

• In the crowd scene on the observation deck just after the artifact is powered up, the albino smuggler from "Racing Mars" can be seen briefly.

• Spelling error: during Trent's voiceover, when she's examining the displays on several of the monitors in her office, the text "EMF EMMISSIONS" can be seen running vertically down the side of one of the computer displays. It should be "emissions."

• Science goof: Ivanova claimed that carbon dating was used to determine that the artifact was over one million years old. Unless she meant some different process than what's referred to as "carbon dating" today, that wouldn't have been possible. Carbon dating is a very specific process: it is used to determine the age of dead plants and animals, and is based on the assumption that the amount of carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, in the Earth's atmosphere has remained more or less constant over time. The theory is that a living organism will ingest C14 from the air and maintain about the same ratio of C14 to normal carbon in its body as exists in the atmosphere.

  After an organism dies, the C14 in its body breaks down and isn't replaced; a rough time of death is determined by measuring the difference between the amount of C14 in the atmosphere and the amount remaining in the organism's body.

  Thus there are several reasons the B5 crew couldn't have used carbon dating to determine the age of the artifact. First, the artifact wasn't alive (though that point is debatable considering its Vorlon origin.) Second, given that the B5 crew had no idea where the artifact came from, they wouldn't have had a baseline to compare against, and thus couldn't have determined a difference in C14 levels. Third, C14 has a fairly short half-life; carbon dating can't be used to determine ages much beyond 50,000 years since all the C14 breaks down in that amount of time.

• Sheridan's passphrase contained the word "Abraxas." The Abraxas was a figure from Gnostic mythology, most commonly found on small talismans called "Abraxas stones" which were popular for a time in the Roman Empire.

jms speaks

• When will it air?
  I checked my figures, and apparently it's either the 9th or the 19th of July for Thirdspace...they've moved it up at TNT from their original November plans as sort of a way of giving a present to B5 fans after having to wait for the NBA Playoffs to finish.

• Barlow did a great job for us designing very alien looking stuff that looks different than what we've done before...a nice break in our format...

• "You mentioned that you were already shooting Thirdspace, the first B5 movie. Wasn't "In The Beginning" the Minbari war story going to be first?"

  The prequel is aired first, but produced second, because B5 didn't exist during the prequel time period, so rather than tear and and rebuild sets, we're doing Thirdspace first.

• How is having more money affecting the production? How is the crew handling making a movie?
  Actually, we don't really have that much more money. Each episode costs a tick under $1 million; for purposes of discussion, let's round that up to 1. So you're now talking 2 million for 2 hours. Now you've got another million to spend. *But* ALL the prices go up by union scale and whatever else can be negotiated. Actors fees go up, writers fees go up, directors fees go up, crew fees go up...so at the end of the day, you find you have a *little* more to spend, but not really that much.

  As for how everyone's handling it...really no different than the series. Actors learn their lines, directors do their shots, the atmosphere on set really isn't much different. The only substantive difference is that, because we know we won't be airing these until January and March/April, at soonest, we have more time in post and can therefore do more EFX.

  George calculated that there are as many EFX in "Thirdspace" as in the entire first season of B5.

• Early season five doesn't seem to have much CGI.
  I did keep the first batch just a *bit* on the light side in order to have room to do the massive amount of rendering on "In the Beginning" and "Thirdspace," the latter of which has (finally delivered) topped out at 27 minutes of CGI out of 94 minutes, which has got to be some kind of record.

• Is it set at the end of season four?
  No, it would be about mid-fourth season.

• Anybody can follow this movie and enjoy it; whether you've seen the show before or not.

• "I have heard that Thirdspace might be the pilot or lead-up to Crusade. True,untrue?"

  Untrue.

Last update: November 2, 1998