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Babylon 5 S01E21: "The Quality of Mercy" - Discussion Thread
Link information
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- Title
- Babylon 5 | The Quality of Mercy : Season 1, Episode 21 | Beyond Infinity
- Authors
- ClipZone: Beyond Infinity
- Duration
- 44:36
- Published
- Jul 30 2026
I don't have a lot to say here but checked the lurkers guide for some notes.
JMS wasn't happy with this script as he was sick when he wrote it and didn't actually remember writing it.
Bill Mumy didn't get a chance to be in a scene with June Lockhart, his former mom from Lost in Space. But Lennier and Londo's little friendship here has some nice future payoff moments and I think emphasize that London is looking for people.
The censors apparently ignored Centauri sex organs appearing on TV.
And the ethics of brain wiping someone instead of killing them. Are they the same? Does the difference matter? Is it fair to punish the "new" human for the previous human's mistakes? But there's not space, especially on a station, to incarcerate someone long term either.
I would prefer a different criminal justice system, but B5 is not set in a utopia galaxy and does not have a utopian government. Else people could get free medical treatment. I appreciate the ethical dilemmas that get thrown our way in this show.
More threads are strung to be plucked later. Given the next episode it doesn't shock me this is a slower one.
Full disclosure: it's been decade(s) since I've watched Babylon 5, and I've definitely forgotten this episode, so I just read through the wiki page summary.
It still feels weird to me to see generically "criminally insane" people portrayed in media. It seems similar to the portrayal of psychopathy: a non-person that seeks only violence and mayhem, wearing the skin of an otherwise average individual. That, in turn, feels really similar to the sort of stories told about woodland monsters, or hellish beasts, and I feel uneasy with both the notion of removing personhood from someone and the frequency with which we seem to do so.
I ran into this article a few months ago, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. Broadly, my non-expert reading is that it proposes that the lack of an (or otherwise diminished) ability to empathize with others while retaining a baseline need for connection wears away rapidly at the human psyche. An inescapable torture that is written in your soul, in other words. Not that that excuses their actions, or whatever, but it feels like the takeaway should be immense grief at how medicine cannot help these people, not righteous fury at purging them from existence.
I dunno. I'm probably reading too much into it.
Some part of me is numb to it, I have also worked with people who were incarcerated in a secure mental facility and who were found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity and so I agree the portrayals are, though very 90s, not very accurate.
JMS asking more questions than answers about the idea
There are actually many issues to get into in all of this. Which is really the "person," the mind, the soul, or the body? If a person has an accident, getting amnesia, which wipes out his entire personality, is that person as good as dead? Is there no difference between amnesia and death? If not, why not just kill the amnesiac? But obviously there is a difference. So what is the person? What constitutes death?
We consider the actual death of the brain through the cessation of brain activity to be the test for death. But what if you simply rearrange those patterns?
There is also the question of justice. If the person is dead, then that person cannot do much to correct the ills he visited upon society. It is simply a waste of material. So why not take someone who, in any decent society, would be executed or forced to live in a 6x9 cage the rest of his life, and give the soul, and the body, a new chance by giving the person a new personality and letting him, as the Ombuds says, "serve the community harmed by his actions"?
Finally, if the person is dead, he's dead; let's say 5 years down the road somebody finds evidence that proves the person was innocent. There is at least the chance to reconstruct some of the original memories and personality profile.
All of this, again, has to be considered in light of the fact that we are talking about a space station with limited space and resources. You cannot warehouse every person who kill somebody in a station that small; you would run out of space almost immediately. (If you also include basic felons and near-killings.) So what do you do with them? As was noted, Earth doesn't want them and won't pay to have them shipped back...what's left?
I think JMS very much wanted to raise these questions without saying this is the best or right thing to do, but also to acknowledge the harm of lifetime, especially solitary, confinement and basically all of our existing options.
Both the concept of giving ones "life force" to others and the concept of whether erased personalities leave the new personality to carry the blame will come back in future episodes.
I also agree in feeling great, deep, sadness over the realities of our ability to help these people before or after they go down these paths. And to keep the focus on them being people. I don't think you're thinking too deeply, I just think the reality of it is as messy as the questions the show raises.
Yeah, I could definitely imagine this being written as a discussion of the topic instead -- as you'd noted, the author was rather ill at the time, which would explain the disconnect.
Totally agreed with science fiction as fantastical way to slip into these conversations, too! Our corrections/incarceration systems come with a lot of social baggage, so moving the setting to a fictional space station does seem to help with unpacking the realities of our decidedly non-fictional societal conventions. My local area -- as well as many in North America, I'd imagine -- has been struggling a lot with mental health crises and addiction. Without opening up a can of worms, I think a lot of folks could do with a fresh perspective and a heaping pile of empathy ...
Bump, but the official YouTube channel has been putting up full episodes as well. Unfortunately it's US only as well, but hopefully it doesn't mix up as much as Clipzone does.
https://youtu.be/HQXZ3HZ-fFk
I still don't understand who's doing what here. Did clip-zone buy some rights to the show and started pushing episodes but the show owners weren't happy and are doing their own thing now too? Is the new stuff going to be free to watch as well or is it part of youtube's subscription thing?
I'm going to ask JMS on Bluesky for some clarity. This is in concert with WB per his post there. (It's WB's thing he is just contributing. Meaning extra features and interviews and things!)
Clipzone and the official channel are both Warner Brothers operations, so I'm assuming there's a more boutique experience on the official channel and Clipzone was a dry run?
Ah maybe something like: Look at the interest a free intern was able to generate, lets do it for real now!