Lost Globes

Story: The River of Souls

Written By: J. Michael Straczynski

Season: Movie #3

In the third TV movie released on TNT, we see the return of the Soul Hunters from Season 1, in a story with bigger scope and some interesting ideas.  It’s funny looking back on my review of the episode they originally appeared in, I clearly wasn’t too impressed.  The fact that I only remembered that W. Morgan Sheppard was in it, and that I had to consult my review just to see what I originally thought about it says a lot. In short, I forgot the bulk of that episode.  This is only their second appearance in the franchise, and it is vastly better.  Maybe it is because the show is well into the swing of things by the time this was filmed, but I think part of it is that this film just has a stronger script. 

The plot revolves around an archeologist in search of immortality, who digs up a Globe left by the Soul Hunters many years ago, in fact he finds a giant tomb of globes  As the plot unfolds it is discovered that this archeologist is doing his research funded by the Edgars Corporation, which is now being headed by Garibaldi.  Garibaldi meets the guy on Babylon 5 to find out if his work is worth funding any further, as he is trying to shutdown anything Edgars was doing that is kinda shady.  Things go a little haywire and the souls try to escape the Globes...and a Soul Hunter shows up.  

The Soul Hunter, who is oddly played by Martin Sheen, wants to see the return of these globes, but it is soon discovered by Captain Lochley (when she is struck by the globes energy) that they weren’t a race dying that the Soul Hunters saved within the Globes...they were evolving beyod the point of needing their bodies.  The Soul Hunters essentially imprisoned them without asking anything about them and for no real reason.  It is up to this Soul Hunter to undo the damage, which may take time, but they have to try (even though the Soul Hunters have a hard time believing they’ve ever made a mistake). 

A subplot involving a holo-brothel owner, who even has a holographic image of Lochley, and his  lawyer trying to get away with running this business is mildly amusing.  Like much of this movie, it showcases what Tracy Scoggins can do with the character of Lochley. She was introduced this final season as a replacement character for Ivanova, and while she was fine and had a few moments, she never really got a lot of story time.  I’m fine with that really, because one of the problems I had with DS9’s final season is that it spent the first half trying to give the new Dax a bunch of material which distracted from the major players in their final season.  But while I’m glad Lochley didn’t get shoehorned into stories she didn’t need to be, I enjoyed seeing her as the lead in a story that takes place after all the major storylines are wrapped up and most of our lead characters have moved on.  

A solid “extra” story for Babylon 5, it feels like a story of something else that happened at the station, that doesn’t really have anything to do with the major story that the show focused on.  

NEXT TIME: Sheridan’s Final Days