"Babylon 5" The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari (1998)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

David J. Eagle

Writers:

J. Michael Straczynski (creator)
J. Michael Straczynski (writer)

TV Series:

"Babylon 5" (1994)

Original Air Date:

28 January 1998 (Season 5, Episode 2)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Space | Space Station | Saga | Mass Destruction | Fascism

Cast

Bruce Boxleitner	...	President John Sheridan
Jerry Doyle	...	Michael Garibaldi
Mira Furlan	...	Delenn
Richard Biggs	...	Dr. Stephen Franklin
Bill Mumy	...	Lennier
Tracy Scoggins	...	Capt. Elizabeth Lochley (credit only)
Stephen Furst	...	Vir Cotto
Jeff Conaway	...	Zack Allan
Patricia Tallman	...	Lyta Alexander (credit only)
Peter Jurasik	...	Londo Mollari
Andreas Katsulas	...	G'Kar
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ross Kettle	...	Ruell
Akiko Morison	...	Med Tech

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Trivia:

This episode's title is taken from another episode, "The Very Long Night of Susan Ivanova," which was never produced due to Claudia Christian's departure from the show. Despite the titles, this episode is not an adaptation of the other with Londo replacing Ivanova, but a different story entirely.

Goofs:

Continuity: After Londo Mollari's shirt is pulled open in MedLab, the shirt is pulled closed twice.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Delenn: Yes.
Ruell: Delenn, my apologies for waking you. But when I saw your message, I felt I had to contact you at once to see if there's a problem.
Delenn: What problem?
Ruell: We would never let someone of your stature go without assistance for very long. We're fully prepared to send along as many potential replacements as you like. Knowing that you've always been so wonderfully egalitarian, we can even fill the position with three assistants, one from each caste.

Very good, but....

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is a very good episode where Londo is dying of heart failure and while in a coma he has a series of visions or dreams. In these dreams, he is slowly confronted for the evil slug that he is and is pushed to accept himself and change. This is VERY reminiscent of Dickens' "Christmas Carole" and I almost expected one of the apparitions to announce that he was the ghost of Christmas Future! And, once Londo regained consciousness, I half expected him to give some money to the first kid he saw and told him to buy the goose in the butcher shop window! While all this worked well and was very entertaining, one problem does exist for this episode. While Londo DOES swear to turn over a new leaf and apologize for his evils, just two episodes later he's back to being a self-centered jerk. This really tends to undo some of the impact of this episode and reduce it more to "filler" status.