G’Kar Needs Help

Story: Acts of Sacrifice

Written By: J. Michael Straczynski

Season: 2

The war is not going great for the Narn, so G’Kar is asking both the Humans and the Minbari for help, both are reluctant to get involved.  Meanwhile, conflicts are growing between the Narn and the Centauri on the station, and it gets to the point of people dying.  It is a solid episode of things happening as opposed to the foreshadowing I’ve gotten so tired of.  This is a show that has waited long enough to let the events unfold rather than give premonitions of them someday unfolding.  I feel like we have to be on the verge of the premonitions starting to take more of a backseat to things actually happening, especially with episodes like “The Coming of Shadows” and this.  

In the end G’Kar is given some help by both the Minbari and the Humans, though not nearly what he was hoping for. They’ll give some food and supplies to the civilians, but no military action or weapons will be given.  And it all has to be hush hush.  After going through the ringer trying to convince his people to stop fighting the Centauri on the station, he gets very little reward.  The man is clearly getting to his wits end at the end. 

The goofy b-story with Ivanova and the aliens is not terribly entertaining, and doesn’t mesh well with the more serious A-story.  It also felt too much like a similar awful story on TNG involving Troi and some alien ambassador who gets over indulgent on chocolate and stuff.  Bad episode there, and bad storyline here.  It culminates in Ivanova acting like an idiot to convince and alien they had sex, she dances and sings and says silly stuff, and the singing is stuff like “boomshakalaka” which totally dates this as a 90s production.  It isn’t as funny as I think they’d hoped it would be.  

The A-story was great, and the b-story lame...mostly a hit episode with a major miss in the b-story department.  

NEXT TIME: To Catch a Fugitive