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By
Lars Joreteg
Review:
Crusade episode 9 - "Racing the Night"
"You
speak well now - Let us see how proud you are in three
years" - Keeper for this generation
"Racing
the Night" is definitely the best episode of Crusade
so far, an episode where the plot, action, and character
interaction all works together to add up to something
more than the sum of its parts.
On
a remote world that has been dead for a thousand years,
the Excalibur crew finds an abandoned city that appears
to be a gold mine of knowledge. But even though the
inhabitants disappeared long ago, the city is in an
amazingly good condition. Where these people also wiped
out by the Drakh plague, or is the city hiding another
secret?
The
core idea of this story of this episode is about how
desperate times cause desperate measures. Through the
beginning flashback we see how the other races are worried
what humanity will do when the plagues incubation time
is up. Justifying this fear of theirs, at the end of
the episode we see how the quest for a cure caused one
race to "take extraordinary means" (to quote Sheridan).
Unfortunately their solution caused the death of many
thousands of innocents of the last thousand years, but
with their survival as a species at stake, this was
an acceptable trade-off for them. This desperation -
is it perhaps a sign of things to come? To what depths
will the Earth Alliance go to find a cure, should time
grow short? The peace and order of the Babylon 5 universe
suddenly seems very fragile... In addition to this intriguing
story, "Racing the Night" also is the most action-packed
episode to date, featuring a fun chase through the city,
and an attack on the Excalibur that gives the fighter
pilots a chance to show off their skills. The script
is very well written and moves along very nicely, giving
each character an opportunity to shine, while also providing
some wonderful dialogue. This is easily the best-written
episode so far. Finally, at the end of the episode the
apocalypse box makes another appearance, posing even
more questions for us to ponder. I love mysterious and
ominous endings. :-)
The
cast is uniformly excellent in this episode and Gary
Cole (as Captain Gideon) gives one of his best performances
so far, this time showing a darker aspect of his personality.
He is a shrewd and lucky gambler, but when will his
luck run out? And how is the box affecting him?
David
Allen Brooks (as Max Eilerson) does give a good performance,
but his character is more stereotypical than usual.
This
is the best episode so far for Dr. Chambers (Marjean
Holden), she does a great job here. You've got to love
that "Dureena-sized hole" comment. :-) Dureena (Carrie
Dobro) is wonderful here as well, especially in her
arguments with Galen. (Side note - her makeup has now
reverted back to the way she looked in "A Call to Arms")
Peter Woodward also hands in a great performance as
Galen.
Lt.
Matheson (Daniel Dae Kim) is give the least amount of
screen time here, but he does a very good job with what
he is given, even though he is the one given most of
the exposition.
The
effects in this episode were great, especially the space
battle. The city chase scene was very good as well,
even though it seemed to be inspired by a certain "pod-race"
at times. :-) Perhaps not the most realistic chase sequence
ever, but groundbreaking for a television series nonetheless.
Hopefully we will see more alien city- and landscapes.
Evan Chen's music was good again, one example being
the deep planet scan scene. The tense moments and battle
scenes were scored better than such moments in previous
episodes as well. The production crew is also getting
better and betters at using "virtual sets" (only partial
sets built, the rest filled in with CGI during post-production),
this episode being a prime example of that.
Sometimes
while watching a television series, along comes an episode
which makes you sit up straight and think to yourself
"wow, this show is good!" When starting to watch Babylon
5, the eighth episode ("And the Sky is Full of Stars")
was that kind of episode for me - from knowing almost
nothing about Babylon 5, it made me an instant fan.
While I've always liked Crusade from the beginning,
this episode had a similar effect on me - it made me
realize how good this show really is, and what incredible
potential is there. Crusade truly deserves to survive,
this episode is clear proof of that.
Rating:
9.5/10
- Lars Joreteg
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