Babylon 5 (TV Series) The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father (1998) User Reviews

One of the best episodes of season 5

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 22 June 2007]

This was a very good episode and a welcome relief from the last disappointing Bester episode. This time, the episode is shown from Bester's perspective and it is set initially at the Psi Corps training facility as Bester welcomes two new assistants. It's a little weird seeing Bester let down his hair and tell jokes and act avuncular (that's a big word that means "like an uncle") to these newbies. In a way, it helps you understand his perspective and appreciate his own difficult childhood.

The episode changes quickly from a meandering look at Psi Corps training, as a P-10 (a higher level telepath) goes crazy and kills his roommate--then he disappears from the training center. Bester and his new aids are forced to drop everything and head to the logical destination of this madman--Babylon 5.

While there's quite a bit more to it than this, the show is a very good showcase for Walter Koenig ("Bester") and the show has a wonderfully creepy conclusion. If you're going to see any episodes from this less than stellar final season, this is one worth seeing!

Good premise, good acting, bad writing

[rumblebars · 4/10 · 19 December 2011]

This one is generally a fairly well-regarded episode. However, after recently re-watching it, I have to point out a number of things that make this one, for me at least, one of the clunkers of an already lackluster season. For other fans, I think the novelty of the different perspective plus the lead actor helped to hide just how badly written this episode was. Analysis and spoilers follow:

The good news, Walter Koenig as Alfred Bester is back, and as always does well with what he's given to work with. Seeing it from his perspective is refreshing. The bad news is that the framing story... sucks.

The holes appear almost immediately. Bester is introduced to two promising interns to "Level 12 Investigations" Okay, fine. I'm sure there are different jobs that P12-level telepaths fill, they can't ALL be field agents, right? But since all Level 12s are REQUIRED to become Psi-Cops, these two "newbies" have to know about their various options and given their knowledge of Bester it's obvious they do. So why then, does Bester start showing them what looks like a piece of general Psi-Corps propaganda film? If I had been one of the recruits, I'd have been insulted, not intrigued.

Then comes the other side of the plot, a P10 goes bananas and kills someone and heads off to Babylon 5. Really, could something like murder be committed right on the Psi-Cop campus and NO-ONE senses ANYthing at all? Uh-huh.

So Bester gets assigned the case and given the old "Bring him back" line - but then later you see him and the newbies sitting in the back of a room with The Boss doing the briefing. Okay, so I guess he's just one of many assigned the case, despite it looking a few minutes earlier like it was supposed to be HIS case (if that was the case, it should have been Bester giving that presentation.) And then, why did they not tell Bester right away that the suspect was a mind-shredder? Keeping that a secret like this from him at first, and from everyone else later on makes absolutely no sense - these are Psi-cops already! Then, if they really thought someone this bad was likely on a place as big as B5, where did all those other people in that meeting go? Bester is told to take his "team" to B5. Really, is his team only the two greenhorns? Uh-huh.

At this point, I'm ready to bash my head against the wall. Fortunately they've provided some handy posters everywhere to help deaden the blows. (really... OBEY?)

Okay, then we're off to B5. Zack has the usual banter with Bester, and then they do some sleuthing. Bester finds where the guy is staying and then has his two newbies stake the place out while he goes to call security... Really. So you think you have a psycho psychic inside and you're going to let two green field agents wait for him. Uh-Huh. Okay, they're P12 and yeah, they have gone through "basic training" but it was already established they hadn't done any kind of advanced blocking training. If I was Bester I'd have done the staking out while sending one of "his team" to contact the station.

And that's another thing - given how easy it is for people to just generally break into people's quarters as is seen in many episodes and like Chen does here, I'm surprised that anyone on the station has anything of value left. Also, no one ever seems to get into trouble for breaking and entering. But I digress.

After some more investigating gets newbie Chen killed, Bester gets the bright idea to examine copies of all the notes on the guy's desk back home and surveillance video of the guy. Hold on. This kind of procedural work should have been done long before they even left for B5. The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father, The Psi-Cops are a bunch of idiots.

The final twist in the case is when Bester figures out this guy has another personality that's P12. Another thing that strains credibility - you'd think that a group dedicated to "all things mental" would be able to sense something like this, rather than the "sometimes they just act weird" thing that Bester's boss said earlier on. Come on, I just can't see the Psi-Cops not keeping closer tabs on their people than this, especially students.

Of course, they take down the psycho psychic and take into custody his "mundane" accomplice, who ultimately gets eliminated.

Really, the only things that salvage this episode are the lead actors. Koenig, of course, is a pro, and Dana Barron as Lauren plays her side well throughout. Her attempt to seduce Bester and his gentle rebuff could have turned out much worse than it did, although I could have lived without her "you deserve a back-rub" at the end. And speaking of the end, I'd forgotten the bit about them throwing the mundane criminal out the airlock. When Lauren does the "please daddy, let me do it" thing with Bester, I was more expecting to see the guy inflicted with some kind of telepathic torture instead of spacing. So I'll give them a point for that small surprise. (but then immediately subtract that point due to the all-too-obvious uncorrected goof of Bester saying "Psi-Corps material" instead of "Psi-Cop material" there at the end, but even that would technically be wrong because all P12s have to be Psi-Cops anyway).

Overall, not a bad idea to show Bester from another angle, but what an awful story to do it with. I only re-watched because I noticed in the DVD's booklet that Stephen Furst (Vir) directed it. He did his job well, and Biggs and Conaway as Dr Franklin and Zack, are the only main cast to appear, but are fine as always. I'll give it 4 stars.

Shame

[wilvis-93963 · 29 September 2017]

I guess Koenig was entitled to get another episode by contract.For me it should not have to be.The whole episode is just a filler so they got to 22 again it has nothing to do with what happened and will have nothing to do with the rest of what is to come.As said they should have stuck with 4 seasons or make 5 a really good one which this is not.Bit of a shame up to season 4 this was the best show in ages.Then it killed itself almost.

Another prime example on the difference between plot and writing

[roger_and_out · 1/10 · 29 June 2019]

Babylon 5's plot, including many of its filler episode, have great plot. On top of the overarching general plot that ended in the mid-fourth season, the alliance, psi corps and mars stories had their moments. However, with those plots the writing has been Babylon 5's greatest glaring weakness (with the horrid acting by most of the cast at a close second). Dialogues are cringe inducing with cliches and tropes that died in the 70s, setups are lame and the payoffs are predictable. In this episode, on top of the poor writing, there are also huge plot-holes... as you would expect from a plot involving the magic of telepathy. It's hard to be consistent or logical with magical abilities, but in this case there's outright sloppiness.