Babylon 5 (TV Series) Grail (1994) User Reviews

A matter of faith

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 7 July 2018]

This episode sees the arrival of Aldous Gajic on Babylon 5; he is the last of his religious order. They have spent their lives searching Earth for the Holy Grail; now he wants to ask the ambassadors if they might know where it is or at least where to look. Meanwhile a lowly construction worker, Jinxo, is threatened by a smuggler known as Deuce; to demonstrate that he means business Deuce 'feeds' somebody who was about to testify against him to what appears to be Ambassador Kosh. Jinxo is so nicknamed because he worked on all five of the previous Babylon stations and when he left on leave each previous station was destroyed... he believes that if he leaves Babylon 5 it too will be destroyed. Then Jinxo steals from Aldous; the court orders him to leave the station but as he begs to stay Aldous offers to take him in. As the victim of Deuce is examined it is suspected that she was the victim of a creature found in Centauri space; when Mollari learns it might be on the station he is terrified and hands over all details about it.

This may be a stand-alone episode but I still rather enjoyed it. David Warner really impresses as Aldous; a man whose faith is such that he dedicated his life to something he knows he may never find. Tom Booker also impresses as Jinxo, a man with a different sort of faith... he genuinely believes that the station will be destroyed if he leaves so stays despite being qualified to enjoy a better life elsewhere. The story teases us with the suggestion that Kosh is feeding off the contents of people's brains... given how little we know about Kosh it is just believable enough. There is some decent action, a nice sense of threat and even some good laughs... the best saved for the final scene. When we finally see the 'Feeder' its design is impressive; inventive and definitely creepy. Overall I'd certainly say this was a good episode.

Grail

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 24 June 2012]

David Warner guest stars in a moving performance as what the Minbari call a "true seeker", considered the last of his kind, Aldous Gajic, who has spent a good portion of his life in pursuit of the Holy Grail, meeting with each ambassador on board Babylon station hoping their worlds might have turned it up, to no such luck. A thief who once worked construction on the previous four stations (all suffering either sabotage or other strange events that lead to their destructions), Jinxo (Tom Booker), given the nickname because he is considered a curse due to his connection with said destroyed stations. He tries to lift a credit from Gajic, is caught by Garibaldi, and sentenced to leave the station, but begs to stay due to his infamous curse. Gajic, however, requests the judge to place Jinxo (real name: Thomas) into his care and the two strike out to visit the other ambassadors, bonding over this time. This episode benefits from not one recognizable guest star, but two, as renowned character actor, William Sanderson (Newhart), portrays a loathsome smuggler who has equipped himself with a mind-sucking creature called a "feeder" in order to intimidate debtors, using a protective suit eerily similar to Ambassador Kosh so he can further reflect a threatening presence. His name is Deuce and he gives Jinxo a certain amount of time to pay his debt or else suffer the brain sucking feeder alien. The feeder alien is vampiric in nature, always in need of sustenance. The Centauri know about the feeder because they lost a colony to the creatures. Anyway, the episode's power derives from Warner's mere presence on screen, his command of your attention, if anyone else were in that role, as someone who is costumed as if he was Moses, staff in hand, in search of the mythic Holy Grail, the character would be a laughingstock not to be taken seriously. But in Warner's presentation, the character is humane, reflective, soft-spoken, and wise. The episode, though, also shows that he can kick some ass if he needs to as is the case when Deuce's goons try to take Jinxo and Gajic uses that staff to subdue them. This plot is about passing the torch at the end of a life's journey as Gajic seems to have found his successor in Jinxo. Gajic will find himself in the area of Babylon station known for only containing the worst kind of citizens, having to stare down the feeder, as a kidnapped judge was meant to be its meal. Delenn's dialogue about Sinclair (who, obviously like a lot of us, considers the quest mute and a waste of time) does seem prophetic regarding his future status (his life on Babylon station as commander was never to last), important for later, while Kosh's reaction (well, his voice's reaction) to people's intimidation towards their Vorlon race (because they don't know what the Vorlons really look like) was to be expected as he says, "Good." The creative mind behind the show often makes mention that "boom" could happen to this station at any time, establishing that the same fate that happened to previous Babylon stations is possible for 5.

Two Mimbari castes or three?

[DaltDanyon · 5 August 2006]

Were my wife and I the only one to notice in this episode that when Delenn and Lennier were talking about Mimbari culture with Aldous Gajic, Lennier states there are only two castes, Warrior and Religious, and not three? Was the idea of the Worker caste a later addition? Although far from experts, I always thought the Grey Council, or "The Nine" were representatives made up of three members each from the worker caste, the warrior caste and the religious caste. I realize the series is long gone and not too many folk leave comments, but this one bugs me a bit. I always thought JMS had this universe down before he started filming.

Further evidence of a lull in the quality of some of season 1's episodes

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 3 January 2007]

For much of the first season of Babylon 5, the series still hadn't established any sort of over-arching plot to connect the episodes like it would have in seasons 2 through 5. In some ways, it was as if the genius behind the series, Michael Staczynski was still trying to feel for a sense of direction and in this case, the show had a guest writer who seemed to have no feel for where the show was headed. Because of this, so many of the season one episodes are self-contained in that they don't connect well with previous or later episodes. This is pretty much the way of sci-fi shows like Star Trek, but for B-5, this makes these earlier episodes less satisfying.

While this episode isn't horrid like the previous one (all about the ultra-macho "Mu-tai" competition), it is definitely one of the worst episodes of the series. David Warner (a wonderful actor) has the thankless job of playing a really dopey character--a robed idiot who is seeking the Holy Grail!!! I really think some Monty Python-like way of handling this would have been better, as it just seemed silly for some guy to devote his life to seeking this religious relic in the year 2258. And what was worse, he spent his time traveling through space looking for it!!!! If it actually existed, don't you think EARTH would be a good place to look?! The main idea of the show is really bad, but is salvaged, somewhat, by some insights into the other races--such as the differences in how his request for information was handled by the Centauri versus the Minbari. This is a very skipable episode unless you are a devoted fan.