"Babylon 5" TKO (1994)

Director:

John C. Flinn III

Writers:

Lawrence G. DiTillio (writer)
J. Michael Straczynski (creator)

TV Series:

"Babylon 5" (1994)

Original Air Date:

25 May 1994 (Season 1, Episode 14)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

A disgraced boxer comes to Babylon 5 to compete in the Mutai, an alien fighting match. Meanwhile, an old friend visits Ivanova so that she can mourn the loss of her father. |

Plot Keywords:

Space | Space Station | Saga | Alien | Space Opera

Cast

Michael O'Hare	...	Cmdr. Jeffrey Sinclair
Claudia Christian	...	Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Jerry Doyle	...	Michael Garibaldi
Mira Furlan	...	Delenn (credit only)
Richard Biggs	...	Dr. Stephen Franklin (credit only)
Andrea Thompson	...	Talia Winters (credit only)
Stephen Furst	...	Vir Cotto (credit only)
Bill Mumy	...	Lennier (credit only)
Julie Caitlin Brown	...	Na'Toth (credit only) (as Caitlin Brown)
Andreas Katsulas	...	G'Kar (credit only)
Peter Jurasik	...	Londo Mollari (credit only)
Gregory McKinney	...	Walker Smith (as Greg McKinney)
Soon-Tek Oh	...	The Muta-Do (as Soon-Teck Oh)
Don Stroud	...	Caliban
Theodore Bikel	...	Rabbi Koslov

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Trivia:

TKO was initially banned from British TV which refused to show kickboxing on its networks.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At the end of the Season 1 episode "TKO", Ivanova says that the Mourner's Kaddish prayer is usually said in Hebrew. Unlike other traditional Jewish prayers, the Kaddish is actually in Aramaic, not Hebrew.

Quotes:

[first lines]
announcement: Liner White Star, arriving from Earth, is now docking in Bay 5...

Among the worst episodes of B-5--skip this one unless you are a die-hard fan

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.

In this episode, an old friend of Garibaldi who we have never heard about before suddenly appears on the base to announce he's going to fight in the Mu-tai--some sort of macho fighting competition where no human has fought before. In so many ways, it is highly reminiscent of the cheesy Jean-Claude Van Damme film BLOODSPORT. And, totally uncharacteristically for this show, the episode is ultra-violent and will alienate much of the audience. This is really like a WWF episode merged with BABYLON 5! Ugghh! What a horrible episode! In fact, there's very little to like about it, as the show does NOTHING to further the ongoing plots of the show and everything in the episode seems to have no context. In fact, some of the characters, such as Garibaldi, behave in ways that seem antithetical to who they have been and will be on the show. As a result of this lack of regard for continuity and a really dumb ultra-macho plot line to boot, this is a rotten episode through and through!