"I'm Not a Little Lady!" (DS9 1-14 "The Storyteller")

This is what happens when you let the Ozymandias Gambit run too long.

May 2, 1993

(Synopsis on Memory Alpha)

Here's the thing.  This is an episode I shouldn't like, and indeed it isn't one of my favorites by any means.  Nevertheless, "The Storyteller" is a very reasonable example of what you an do with the one and done structure but still have some impact on future episodes.

Allow me to explain.  "The Storyteller" has completely divided A- and B-Plots.  O'Brien and Bashir leave the station in the first scene and come back in the last, never having spent any of the interim time anywhere near the rest of the cast.  Indeed, we never even see the two of them mention the events to anyone else, and while it is reasonable to assume that they wrote reports or something, the actual events of the story are never mentioned again on the show.

Funnily enough, the events here do become a key element in the post-DS9 novels where everyone Bashir and O'Brien met in this episode gets massacred and the little orb bit gets stolen to become the MacGuffin for a trilogy of novels.  But Trek novels, unlike their B5 counterparts, are of dubious canonical value.  We'll get to the odd thing that is the Star Trek novel later between Seasons One and Two.

It's a Buddy Cop piece with actual cops!

The A-Plot does have some long term consequences, however, in the teaming up of O'Brien and Bashir for the first time.  These two will eventually become a recognizable team, with the two of them getting their own plot arc, the Section 31 episodes, and appearing together at Quark's and other places as off-duty friends.  Ira Stephen Behr is the one who suggested the pairing, and it was his rewrites of "The Storyteller" that established the basis for their relationship.

It's a cannily chosen pairing, really.  Bashir brings the upper class academic approach to the way things should be done, while O'Brien has the get your hands dirty working ethos.  O'Brien's practicality serves to tone down Bashir's excesses, while Bashir's enthusiasm helps O'Brien recognize new possibilities.  Over time they'll have some very good episodes together, and that trend starts here where their dynamic has its birth. Season Two's "Armageddon Game" is an example of this dynamic at work, so we'll discuss it more then.

Busted!

The other half of the episode, with Jake and Nog hanging out with a teenage Bajoran who turns out to be more than she seems, is less successful.  Partly it's because, as we've discussed before, Lofton and Eisenberg are still adaptingto playing Jake and Nog, plus the writing for Nog in particular is pretty one note.  There is a thematic link with the A-Plot, about a young leader growing into his or her responsibilities in a crisis, but you really have to look to see it.  Mostly it's just Jake, Nog, and hi-jinks.

Still, there are some effective moments, particularly when Odo gets involved.  It's nice to see a show willing to show its cop character do more than just homicide investigations.  Odo gets some local cop duties mixed in with the usual crime drama, including in this case riding herd on a couple of rambunctious teenagers.

That's something that you don't see Garibaldi do much over on Babylon 5, because his job is on a completely different scale than Odo's.  Odo gets called "constable" by Sisko a lot, and the title is apt because there are only a couple thousand civilians aboard Deep Space Nine.  The rest are around two hundred or so Starfleet officers and crew who all report to Sisko instead.  That means that Odo's in charge of security for the equivalent of a very small village or maybe a precinct of a mid-sized town, which in turn means that while he's responsible for dealing with any serious crime that comes up, he also has to handle minor stuff like vandalism, public drunkenness, and yes, teenage pranks.  By comparison, Michael Garibaldi is the head of a security force that's trying to impose order on "a quarter million humans and aliens, all alone in the night."  That's being the police chief of Madison, Wisconsin or Nottingham in England, or Hiroshima in Japan.  It's not on the scale of being in charge of all the cops in Chicago, London, or Tokyo, say, but it's still a much bigger deal than overseeing a couple thousand people, 10% of whom are military personnel not under your jurisdiction anyway.

I did think it was cute that the A-Plot revolves around an Ozymandias Gambit that's been played out too long.  The gambit I'm referring to is from Watchmen, the awesome comic books and decent movie where a character named Ozymandias fakes a crisis to avert a war by giving the opposing sides a mutual enemy to fight against.  In "The Storyteller" we get a situation where the crisis was averted hundreds of years ago but the keepers of the gambit and their descendants have been forced to sustain the fake threat once a year for centuries because they fear the results if their deception were ever revealed.  Amusingly, unlike what would have almost certainly happened on Star Trek or The Next Generation, the Starfleet representatives, O'Brien and Bashir, don't do the big reveal at the end of the episode to bring the light of truth to the people.  Rather, they just shrug and go along with maintaining the ruse, figuring it's not really their problem, it's the newly installed Sirah's.  Just one more step away from the Roddenberry traditions here, and it's one I doubt most people even noticed.

I'll conclude by noting that the final tracking shot of the episode was well done.  It starts with Sisko escorting Varis to her crucial meeting then over to Odo dragging Nog and Jake off for their punishment, then to O'Brien and Bashir returning from Bajor, and back they way it came as those two walk right past the security office and conference room, never knowing or caring about the plots being resolved in them.  It was the first time that I can recall Deep Space Nine using such a complex single take, and as such, it should be noted for being nicely shot.

Next episode, we have another look at Bajor and its politics, and the consequences of "Progress."  I'll see you there.

"When you cease to fear death, the rules of war change" (DS9-13 "Battle Lines")

A legacy of pain

April 25, 1993

(Synopsis on Memory Alpha)

"Battle Lines" is a surprisingly gutsy episode.  For one thing they re-introduce then eliminate Kai Opaka, the Bajoran spiritual leader from "The Emissary".  That's an action that has consequences throughout the rest of the season as the question of who will be the new Kai comes to the fore in later episodes this season.  The episode is also willing to let the heroes fail.  Kai Opaka is not rescued.  The conflict between the Ennis and Nol-Ennis is left unresolved.  About the only thing the main characters manage to do is escape with their lives, which isn't winning, just surviving.

We should also consider the courage in the scene depicted above where Kira, taking what turns out to be her last chance to speak with Opaka alone, unburdens herself about the violence she's seen and the violence she's committed during her time in the Bajoran Resistance.  Its a powerful and uncomfortable scene, since we're already used to seeing Kira in control and yelling at people, the sudden change to racked with guilt and weeping is startling.  Indeed, it's a bit too uncomfortable for my tastes, but reasonably well done regardless.

You can't cross those lines, Ben.  They won't let you.

Kira strongly resembles G'kar from Babylon 5, in fact.  Both fought for their world's independence from a conquering power, both were scarred by the experience, and both ended up in positions of power on a human run space station with a chip on their shoulders.

Likewise the fact that even when offered a chance to escape from their hell neither faction is willing to set aside their hatred is telling.  Unlike a lot of other Trek episodes, old and new, in this case it turns out that Starfleet can't just swoop in and deliver a solution on a silver platter.  Hatred this deep requires years of work and sacrifice to resolve, and it may well take the eternity that Opaka gained from her resurrection to bring it into being.  There's another parallel to B5 here, with the hatred between the Narn and Centauri mirroring that of the Ennis and Nol-Ennis.

Of course one could also equate the Narn to the Bajorans and the Cardassians to the Centauri, but that analogy can only take you so far, because while the Cardassians to Centauri comparison works in many ways, the Narn and Bajoran situation is pretty different.  In particular, the Bajorans are never a major power in the galaxy, even with the wormhole in their system, while the Narns are.  The difference in power between them ends up working out for the Bajorans who are able to shelter behind the Federation and Starfleet in a way that the Narn are not.

Runabout down.  The first of many.

As far as the rest of the episode goes, it was pretty decent.  There's a bit too much technobabble in the rescue for my tastes, with O'Brien literally inventing a new type of sensor on the spot to track the lost runabout.  Speaking of which, this is the first runabout destroyed in the series.  It would not be the last.  DS9 would go through runabouts like they were kids eating candy, to the point that it gets downright silly after a while.  That's not really the fault of this episode, of course, but the trend toward disposable warp-capable ships starts here.

All told, "Battle Lines" is the second episode in a row for Deep Space Nine that would have significant impact towards the rest of the series.  That's a trend I can applaud, and even if it wasn't significant in that way, the episode is well enough done as to keep the interest up.  Well done.

Can DS9 keep up the quality and significance when we see "The Storyteller" next?  Come on back to find out.

One Week Off

I hadn't planned to take a week off, but between some family stuff, the holidays, and a trip out of tow for the weekend, it's become clear that this week is a no go.  We'll be back next Monday with "Battle Lines".

Have a good weekend!

"Someday We'll Know" (DS9 1-12 "Vortex")

Odo plays "bad cop-bad cop".

April 18, 1993

(Synopsis on Memory Alpha)

I have complained in the past about the one-and-done nature of most of the early Deep Space Nine episodes.  But that's not completely fair since, as we've noted, one-and-done was how almost all Star Trek had been done before.  Indeed, most episodic television, barring soap operas, tended to be designed around leaving the status quo intact by the end of any given episode because one could never be certain that the audience would be able to watch the episodes in the order they were produced or broadcast.  Indeed, the idea of a continuing story in a TV show is significantly more popular now than it ever was back in the '90s. One need only looks as far as Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, or Lost to see the more complex form of storytelling in play.  But that doesn't mean the old one-and-done style is extinct.  Most of your police drama shows like CSI have no particular storylines beyond the one in the episode you're watching.  Oh, occasionally you'll get a Miniature Killer plotline that goes the length of a season or so, but as with The Next Generation, one can watch CSI in pretty much any order and never know it except for when members of the cast change.

So on one hand, criticizing Deep Space Nine for so many one-shot episodes is rather unfair.  Following a successful path blazed by the previous Trek shows only makes sense.  And yet, as we'll see once B5 gets going in '94, ongoing stories could be done on science fiction television in the mid-90's, and done well.

The upshot of this as far as "Vortex" goes is that it does manage to leave a breadcrumb toward future storylines.  The rest of the episode is disposable, but there is that one clue that Odo's people probably hail from the Gamma Quadrant and that there are legends of the "Changelings" being hunted and persecuted by those who fear their shapeshifting abilities.  Nothing else from this episode carries forward, not the Miradorn race, not Croden and his daughter, not the Rakhari species and their tyrannical government.  In that respect "Vortex"" ends up being a lot like most Babylon 5 episodes where a tiny step forward is made.  The difference, of course, is that where-as most B5 episodes will be like "Vortex", "Vortex" itself is an outlier among the early episodes of Deep Space Nine.

Indeed, if we examine the episodes thus far, how many have any future impact on the rest of the show?  Pretty much all of "The Emissary", clearly.  Garak in "Past Prologue".  The parts of "A Man Alone" where Keiko sets up the school.  "The Nagus" introduces us to Grand Nagus Zek who will be back.  We learn that Odo's probably from the Gamma Quadrant here in "Vortex".  Only five of eleven episodes (counting both parts of "The Emissary" as one episode here) have any future impact on the rest of the show at all, and even then the impact is often in minor ways that can be easily explained without having seen the original episode.

"Who's that?"  "That's Zek, he's the leader of the Ferengi."  Job done, you don't need "The Nagus" for that.

At least we're going to re-use the key, right?  No?  Huh.

Mind you, much of Babylon 5's continuity works in exactly the same way.  Do you need to have watched "The Quality of Mercy" to know that the crew have an alien healing machine that takes life from one person and gives it to another when they use it to save Garibaldi in "Revelations"?  No more than you needed to have seen "The Nagus" to find out who Zek was.  In both cases the original episode gives more context, but they aren't truly necessary.

Here's what our old buddy J. Michael Straczynski had to say on the "Quality of Mercy" machine, and on leaving clues in advance in general:

"You will see the healing machine from "Quality" once more. Part of the reason for that story was to set up something within the B5 universe that will come in handy a long time later (but I'm *not* going to have it lying around indefinitely; it would cause lots of long-term complications).

(Some TV shows foreshadow/set-up stuff an act or two ahead of time; we do setups a full *year* ahead....)"
                                                    -J. Michael Straczynski, The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5

As it happened, we would see the machine twice more after "Quality of Mercy".

All of which is a long way to say that the thing I found most memorable about "Vortex" was the clues they distributed bout Odo's origin.  As for the rest?  It was fine, I suppose.  The curiously laid-back performance by Cliff DeYoung as Croden was pretty interesting if occasionally off putting.  Rene Auberjonois did his usual fine work as Odo, and we get to see that Odo is willing to abandon a chance to find out where he's from in order to stay on his job.  Duty over all other concerns is the way Odo plays it at this early stage.  We'll see if that can stand up to the trials to come.

Quark gets a little more to do early on, as we seem him trying to pull a heist on a couple of pirates.  No consequences seem to fall upon him for criminal activities any more than it did for his cheating in "Move Along Home".  There isn't much else to say about it.  It was an episode that neither excites nor annoys.  They can't all be great or terrible enough to have a lot to say about them, after all.

Next an episode with major consequences for the rest of the show, what JMS would later call a "wham" episode.  See us here next time for "Battle Lines".

"I Didn't Think You Had the Lobes!" (DS9 1-11 "The Nagus")

A face only Quark's mother could love

March 21, 1993

(Synopsis on Memory Alpha)

The problem with "The Nagus" isn't anything to do with the episode itself.  Indeed, despite a few moments that aren't as compelling as they should be, mostly relating to Jake and Nog, the episode is actually put together pretty well.  As you know, I prefer the A-plot and B-plot of any given episode to compliment one another, and they do so here.  The fallout of Grand Nagus Zek's visit to the station rolls downhill and impacts Jake and Nog's friendship in the B-plot.

All well and good.

For that matter, the appearance of the Grand Nagus here makes perfect sense.  Using the lure of the wormhole and his own faked death to test his son while letting a complete nobody, Quark, wear the purple and carry the shiny stick as stalking horse is a decent plan.  Subsequent appearances of Zek make progressively less sense, but this one works.

The episode is thematically coherent as well, with it boiling down to the examination of a number of relationships, father to son, brother to brother, friend to friend.  We see that the way the Siskos treat people is a strength while the way the Ferengi characters treat each other is a weakness, and thus we are informed by the comparison of one plot to the other.  That's structurally sound writing, and I approve.

Quark gets a lesson in Ferengi power politics.

Nor are the performances really a problem in "The Nagus".  Wallace Shawn. Mr. Inconceivable himself, does a great job with the manipulative Grand Nagus Zek.  The supporting Ferengi show a decent amount of difference between one another, with one scheming, another threatening, and the last almost honest.  Quark finally pushing Rom too far and nearly paying for it with his life is a well done scene, albeit one that is unfortunate to appear right after "Move Along Home" because we get back to back episodes of Quark abjectly groveling, which doesn't do his character many favors.  Admittedly, Cirric Lofton isn't a particularly good actor yet, but for a child actor in the '90s he isn't disgraceful and he gets better over the years.  Aron Eisenberg, who plays Nog, is just a short adult.  He was actually 24 years old at the time of this filming, as opposed to Lofton who was 14 in early 1993.  Eisenberg will get better too, once the writers start to give Nog angles besides "sullen" and "mischievous".

No, the problem with "The Nagus" is what comes afterwards.  "Ferengi Episodes" are an epithet among DS9 fandom, though, as with all things, it is possible to find people who enjoy them.  Some of the most painful episodes of Deep Space Nine will be "comedy" episodes focusing on how wacky those silly Ferengi are.  The trouble is, while there is some of that here in "The Nagus" it is counter-balanced by a deadly serious assassination plot and the implication that due to the Federation's disdain for money and economics, the Ferengi more or less dominate and abuse much of the Alpha Quadrant's economy.

Utopia has its price when dealing with those who don't share your Utopian ideals

Alas, the darker implications of this story are left unexamined except by inference here in "The Nagus", and are dropped entirely in subsequent Ferengi Episodes.  We'll get into that pain more in subsequent seasons, but know that the seed for it was planted here, and nurtured by writers who took the wrong lesson from an otherwise pretty good episode.

MIA: Ferengi military power

There are, of course, a few other nitpicks we can make about "The Nagus".  Like "Dax", this episode re-writes what we know about a race introduced on The Next Generation.  Gone are the raiders and slavers equipped with fleets of ships powerful enough to challenge a Galaxy class starship.  Instead of visiting aboard a Ferengi Marauder class vessel, Grand Nagus Zek shows up in a small transport with a single servant.  Rather than a mysterious race of unknown capabilities that we saw in the first season of TNG, we get a race so well known for corrupt business practices that they want to go through the wormhole into the Gamma Quadrant mostly to outrun their own reputation!

Taken in isolation, "The Nagus" is a pretty good episode.  Had I seen this one in 1993, I might have been less turned off of DS9 as I was after "Move Along Home", but I was on spring break at the time and only saw this one later in re-runs.  Of course, I also wouldn't have realized that this was but a taste of worse things to come, but that will be for much later.

Over on Babylon 5 we find that there really isn't an equivalent counterpart to the Ferengi episode.  Rather than having a designated comic relief character, on B5 there's a tendency to make fun of everyone at some point or another.  Delenn, for instance, has her moments of glory.  She can be inspiring, intimidating, and loving.  But she also has appearances where the show makes fun of her misunderstandings of human culture, or the episode where Ivanova has to teach her hair care.  Pretty much all the characters on B5 get moments like that where they're the comic relief while someone else carries the heavy part of any given episode.  It's more challenging writing than just "this guy is the one we laugh at" but the payoff is that it gives your characters more depth.

So that's "The Nagus".  Deep Space Nine would go into re-runs until mid-April, but we'll be back here in a couple of days with "Vortex".  I'll see you then.

"This is not what I signed up for!" (DS9 1-10 "Move Along Home)

March 14, 1993

Sisko and crew are pawns in the game of life.

(Synopsis on Memory Alpha)

I've got to be honest here.  I don't particularly like this episode.  Indeed, it was on my list of the episodes I was dreading having to watch again.  "Move Along Home" managed to break my habit of watching Deep Space Nine every week back in college.  Afterwards I only watched the show sporadically, rather than every week as I had up till this point.

How does it stack up now, twenty years later?

It isn't as bad as I recalled...with a couple of exceptions.  Most of the episode is fine, if a little surreal at points.  The idea of people being used as pieces in a dangerous game is a common idea in science fiction, ranging from arena combat in the original Star Trek to various holodeck escapades on The Next Generation.   To have your characters play in a board game is a little more unusual, but not unheard of.  This episode only predates Jumanji by a couple of years, after all.

Quark, for the first time ever, gets used as something besides comic relief.  Indeed, this is one of Armin Shimerman's favorite episodes for that very reason.  Said Shimerman:

"In its own cracked way, it's an okay show. It was the first time the writers allowed Quark to get somewhat serious. As Quark, I was once again screwing up, but they had given me a wonderful, almost heroic speech. They allowed Quark to, if not be a hero, at least have aspirations of doing something heroic. It's one of my favorite episodes."

                                                        -Armin Shimerman, The Deep Space Nine Companion

What kills the episode for me, however, was the ending.  By revealing that the whole thing was a harmless game, it retroactively kills the dramatic tension.  Saying "It's just a game" is as much a cheat as "It was all a dream".  If there's no danger, why are you wasting my time?  Twenty years ago, that ending infuriated me.  Now I'm only annoyed by it, but by no means do I like it.  Nor was I the only one:

"The ending, where we learn it was just a game, undercut everything that went down for the previous four acts. It all seems pointless if there wasn't any jeopardy after all. I've heard from some fans who felt cheated that the characters were never in any kind of threat. I agree with those fans".

                 -Frederick Rappaport, The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine, Issue 8

Who's Frederick Rappoprt?  He's the guy who wrote the episode.  Or, perhaps it is fairer to say, he's the guy who submitted a script that developed into the episode.  You see things don't always run smoothly for writers on big shows like Deep Space Nine.  For most Trek based shows, the writing process usually involved a group of writers kicking around ideas until a one sentence pitch is put together.  Sometimes that sentence is all the actual screenwriter gets, sometimes there's more details, depending on the importance of the story.  Oftentimes there are additional requirements, like "Colm Meany's filming a move in Ireland, so you can't use O'Brien."  Once the basics are settled, the screenwriter does the script and hands it in, at which point the showrunner, the director, and maybe even the other staff writers and the suits upstairs all take a whack at it until the "shooting script" appears.  Then that version gets handed out to the actors and, depending on the practices of the show, maybe the actors give a few notes to the director or ad-libs something that eventually makes it on screen.

Which is how you can end up with the guy who wrote the teleplay hating the way the episode ended.

Babylon 5's process was a little different.  Since only Straczynski knew where the show was going, all the scripts written by others ended up on his desk for approval.  Often, he'd re-write some or all of the episode t make it fit the way he needed to in the larger story.  Ad-libbing was all but completely forbidden lest an errant line divulge too much or too little.  Eventually, Straczynski would take on all the writing himself, which was a nearly unparalleled feat.

Ironically this would have been better if he had been gambling with their lives.

Back on DS9, Shimerman's right, of course, that this really is the first we see of a serious Quark.  It's not all that serious, and the groveling scene is so pathetic as to be uncomfortable to watch, but his speech to Odo about trusting a gambler to know the game is indeed pretty well done.  Of course that leads into the whole thing blowing up in Quark's face, but failed or not, it was a good scene.  Television morality being what it is, Quark can't be allowed to profit from his earlier cheating, so of course he loses his bet.  Still, the problem isn't with anything that Quark, or Shimerman for that matter, does.  It's with the crappy cheat ending that ruins "Move Along Home."

This episode also marks the second time in two episodes that someone impersonates Bashir, albeit the last time in "The Passenger" was someone impersonating Bashir in his own body!  This won't be the last time this happens to the good doctor, either.

We should also wave goodbye to Lieutenant Primmin who doesn't even get to die heroically.  No, the Starfleet security man simply vanishes after one last acerbic conversation with Odo, never to be heard from again.

Finally we should note the oddness on display here.  Specifically, that there have been two cultures who have traveled through the wormhole into Alpha Quadrant, and they're both dedicated to what we would consider a relaxation or leisure activities.  For the Hunters and the Tosk it is about hunting.  For the Wadi, games.  It would be nice to consider that a precursor to the Dominion where the Jem'hadar only fight, and the Vorta only weasel, but as this predates the first mention of the Dominion by a year or so.  And since, like the Hunters and the Tosk, the Wadi are never heard from again, we can only speculate.  Or turn to some of the novels and video games where others have speculated for us.

So that's "Move Along Home".  Will things get better with a truly Quark centered episode?  Find out next time with "The Nagus."

"Sooner or later, everyone comes to Babylon 5" (B5 Pilot "The Gathering" '98)

I Love you, Carolyn.  Now, we'll never speak of you again.

January 4, 1998

(Synopsis at The Lurker's Guide)

As was pointed out in the comments of my last analysis, it is possible to watch the '93 version of "The Gathering" online.  The question is, outside of its value as a historical artifact, why would you want to?

Overall, the special edition re-release from 1998 is the superior product.  For one thing, while there are fans of Stewart Copeland out there, Christopher Franke did an excellent job doing the music for the rest of the series so replacing Copeland's score with Franke's in the re-release just makes more sense vis a vis continuity with the rest of the show.  Also, and Straczynski cops to this during the the commentary track of the re-release, there just wasn't enough music in the original version.  There's only something around 20 minutes of music to be had which isn't much for 90 minutes.  Franke's score more than doubles that to around 45 minutes.

The re-release is also 14 minutes longer, and includes whole scenes that got cut from the original '93 release. One is a throwaway scene about a guy trying to pick up an alien woman who turns out to be from a species where the females eat their mates.  Given that the race in question doesn't appear again it's really only there to lighten the mood somewhat.  Another scene that's new is one where Sinclair handles a hostage situation by talking the criminal down and letting him go, albeit with a death threat if he ever returns.  While useful to see that Sinclair prefers negotiation to violence and is willing to put his life on the line for others, the scene itself, especially the final threat, comes off as weird.  After all, the criminal who was smuggling drugs and took a hostage was a human standing on an Earth Alliance space station.  That's not really the kind of mistake you should be able to walk away from.  Of course, it does suggest a more frontier justice kind of feel to Babylon 5, but given what we'll see later on the show, that isn't really the way things are.

Alas, poor Ben.  I knew him well.

The third major scene that was re-added was a conversation between Doctor Benjamin Kyle and first officer Laurel Takashima.  Given that neither character would return for the main series, one cannot see the scene of them discussing Laurel's background on Mars as anything but deeply ironic.  It took guts to put that scene back in five years later knowing that neither character was still around.

Of the two characters, the one whose loss is more painful is that of Doctor Benjamin Kyle.  Though his performance has some rough spots, the easy camaraderie he displays with the other human characters, especially Sinclair, would have made for an interesting dynamic.  Granted, we wouldn't have had Richard Biggs' performance as Stephen Franklin, which was good.  But one can't help but wonder how Ben Kyle would have done in Franklin's place.  Alas, Johnny Sekka developed health problems and couldn't continue with Babylon 5.  Indeed, "The Gathering" was Sekka's last performance before he retired from acting prior to his death from lung cancer.  Oddly enough, he would survive until 2006, and thus lived two years longer than his successor, Richard Biggs, who died in 2004.

Doctor Kyle's departure from the show triggered what Straczynski liked to call his character trap doors.  When an actor left the show the unresolved plot elements for that character would be transferred to another. Sometimes to that character's direct replacement, and sometimes not.  In Kyle's case, his eventual stim addiction is first mentioned here when Kyle stays up for 48 hours to keep Kosh alive, so the doctor uses stims to stay awake and alert.  Eventually, Kyle's replacement Doctor Franklin would find himself going down the same road, leading to his disgrace and resignation in Season Three.

I'm going with Takashima in the Guest Quarters with the PPG!

On the other hand, Laurel Takashima's plotline would get jumped from herself to the replacement telepath on the show, Talia Winters.  Laurel, you see, was meant to be the traitor with an artificial personality agent working in her subconscious.  The first clue of her eventual betrayal was here in "The Gathering" where the assassin uses her ID code to get into secured quarters.  Her direct replacement, Ivanova, would pick up the latent telepath plotline instead.

Unlike my wistfulness about the departed Doctor Kyle, I can't find myself missing Laurel Takashima very much.  Tamlyn Tomita's performance was stiff and difficult to watch.  Evan back in 1993 on the black & white TV, I could see she wasn't comfortable with the role.  The producers, the WB suits, and even Tomita herself eventually agreed with that assessment, and thus she left the show.  Which, considering that Claudia Christian's Ivanova was one of the standout characters of the show, ended up being the best solution for everyone with the possible exception of Tomita's bank account.

The only problem was that in the end, the traitor plotline ends up not working as well as it should.  Rather than Laurel shooting Garibaldi in the back, we ended up with Jack, Garibaldi's second in command.  At least they managed to get Jack into the show a few times before he was revealed to be treacherous, but the impact wasn't there the way it could have been had it been a trusted character like Laurel doing the shooting instead.  Unfortunately, by shifting the traitor card to Talia, you found yourself playing a longer game that was itself short circuited when Andrea Thompson left the show in Season Two.

So wait, if Talia's the telepath, what happened to Lyta Alexander?  And haven't I seen her in later episodes? Yes, you have.  In a weird turn of events that is the exact reason Straczynski put in his trapdoors in the first place, Patricia Tallman chose not to return to the series.  Despite the fact that she'd done pretty well with the role and, indeed, Straczynski had written it with her in mind, she didn't see enough future in Lyta to come back.  So Andrea Thompson will be getting introduced in the series proper as Lyta's replacement.  Eventually, after Thompson herself gets in a fight with the producers and quits the show (or is fired, reports differ) Lyta comes back as a telepath on the run.  Lyta was meant to have her story conclude in an episode of Crusade, but Tallman couldn't get as much money as she wanted for the appearance and passed, leaving some nameless telepath we've never heard of before or since to be the one who martyrs herself to destroy the PsiCorps.

Bester was right, telepaths can't get any breaks!

What do you mean this is all I get?

The final casualty among the pilot's cast was Sinclair's lover, Carolyn Sykes.  Blaire Baron kind of got a raw deal out of this one.  Straczynski wanted a racially diverse cast.  When he lost the African Benjamin Kyle, he replaced him with African-American Stephen Franklin.  However, when he lost Asian Laurel Takashima, he replaced her with Russian Susan Ivanova.  So, to keep an Asian in the main cast he replaced Baron's Carolyn Sykes with Julie Nickson-Soul's Catherine Sakai as Sinclairs new girlfriend.  Alas, when Sinclair left the show at the end of the first season there wasn't a good reason for Sakai to keep showing up, so she vanished as well.  By that time, Straczynski just threw up his hands and gave up, and there was no significant Asian character thereafter.  In all honesty, though, neither Baron nor Nickson-Soul manage to do all that much with their characters.  Maybe I slightly prefer Sakai to Sykes, but that's only because I saw more of the former than the latter.

As far as other changes from the pilot to the main show, they're mostly cosmetic.  The guns change from elongated phaser-looking ones in the pilot to the stubby PPGs of the show.  Delenn has a set of magic rings in her quarters that are decided to be too powerful and eliminated without further mention.  G'kar's makeup and Londo's hair go through revisions.  There are fewer flashing lights once the show gets going than in the pilot, but they also increase the lighting overall.  It had been such a pain in the ass to use the floating mechanism for Kosh that they went with a less elegant but much easier to use version.  And so on, and so forth.

Thus "The Gathering".  Some of the performances don't work, the plot is too exposition heavy for anyone's good, and some of the special effects fail.  On the other hand, some of the performances rock, the story is intriguing, and there's hints of better times ahead.  It was promising enough, despite the flaws, to get back on the air in a year, and that's about as much as you can ask for from a pilot.

So we set aside Babylon 5 for a while longer and return to Bajor and Deep Space Nine.  I'll meet you there.