The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
| "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" | |
|---|---|
| Babylon 5 episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 4 Episode 22 |
| Directed by | Stephen Furst |
| Written by | J. Michael Straczynski |
| Production code | 501 |
| Original air date | 27 October 1997 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
|
Roy Brocksmith (Brother Alwyn Macomber) |
|
Roy Brocksmith (Brother Alwyn Macomber)
Alastair Duncan (Latimere)
Eric Pierpoint (Daniel)
Neil Roberts (Brother Michael)
"The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" is the final episode of the fourth season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. This was the final episode of Babylon 5 to air on PTEN, produced as a replacement for Sleeping in Light when the show was renewed by TNT.
This episode takes place after the events of the rest of the series. It shows the long-term effect of the Interstellar Alliance from the point of view of one hundred, five hundred, one thousand, and one million years after the founding of the Alliance.
Three viewpoints are debated on an ISN broadcast: pro-Clark elements try to paint John Sheridan as a madman, others (particularly the outer colonies and Mars) view Sheridan and the Babylon 5 forces as liberators, and a third commentator treats Sheridan in a neutral fashion.
A live televised debate presents two historians mistakenly believing that the role of Sheridan and Babylon 5 in the war against the Shadows and overthrowing Clark has been mythologized, and that Sheridan was power-hungry. An aged Delenn makes a surprise entry to the debate, saying that Sheridan was a good, kind, and decent man. She chastises the historians for fabricating "facts" to fill in the gaps of their knowledge.
Amid growing tension between the Interstellar Alliance and xenophobic elements on Human-settled planets, an anti-Alliance faction attempts to set up forged holographic records to show the heroes of Babylon 5 to be megalomaniacal war criminals. These holograms are based on historical data and recorded memories of the original crew, with the forged records overriding their personalities. Sheridan is programmed to make an impassioned speech about conquering Earth before soon-to-be massacred prisoners and Dr. Franklin is programmed to act out a scene showing him talking clinically about horrific experiments involving human children and alien organs. Before Garibaldi is reprogrammed, he stalls by getting the programmer to reveal his faction's plans to launch a sneak attack on civilian population centers as the start of an all-out war while Garibaldi, who is aware that he is a computer program, hacks into the computer network and broadcasts the conversation. Before the programmer can turn off the holograms, an alarm sounds, indicating an imminent missile attack. The programmer, knowing that pro-Alliance forces have launched their own attack, moments before a nuclear explosion envelops the anti-Alliance base.
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