Watching Babylon 5 with Jenn and Eva.

[conuly]

I'm amazed at how well I remember the show, given that I've only watched it once. (During Dubya's administration, a mistake I certainly did not intend to repeat during Trump's!)

We just watched Believers, and it's not that it's a bad episode it's just that... I could punch Dr. Franklin here. First, he doesn't make any attempt whatsoever to find out if there might be an alternate treatment. Okay, for the sake of script there wouldn't be, but since he doesn't know he's a character in a TV show he doesn't know that. He could at least try instead of being Dr. Arrogant all episode. And then he goes ahead with it anyway. Anybody could tell you that this is not something you do without first arranging a foster home for your hapless patient. How can somebody so smart be so stupid?

Infuriating all around.

Comments

[pensnest]

There was just a horrible inevitability from the moment we saw Stephen contradicting the parents' seriously expressed statements, and ignoring their reactions when he contradicted their lore. I mean, I'm not on the side of believers, in general, and especially not on the side of believers who sincerely think that being 'punctured' will cause their sick child to become an unperson.... but Stephen never for a moment took them seriously.

His arrogance comes up again, before the end of the season. I think it makes him an interesting character to watch, but not necessarily a character to like!

[conuly]

Right, and if the child hadn't been old enough to express an opinion I would've been very firmly against Sinclair's ruling - but he was, and that's that. Stephen was just so sure he was right and, not only that, but that the family would be forced to agree.

(Also, not him but the other one - it's not about their God being cruel and capricious, from their viewpoint its an immutable statement of fact. The soul lives there, and escapes if you let it go. I think that's as silly as she does, but if she'd listened for a full three seconds she would've seen that. Wrong argument, lady.)

[conuly]

(He didn't even warn the parents first. That was guaranteed to be a messy scene, and he didn't even tell them that they were collecting a child instead of a body. Ugh.)

[pensnest]

Yep! Such a fan of the big "I'm a hero!" reveal....

[conuly]

Just, what the hell did he think was going to even happen?

Right before the surgery I turned to Eva, said "Listen, it's all downhill from here" and we moved to the next ep. In her headcanon, the kid died peacefully in accordance with his beliefs, and that's sad, but at least it's not worse.

[jesuswasbatman]

I always assumed that the episode was meant to be a critique of the type of Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where the crew would encounter some kind of ethical dilemma or repugnant cultural behaviour on an alien planet that was a blatant metaphor for some issue that had recently been in the news (in this case parents refusing to have children treated because of some religious belief like Christian Science, or the Jehovah's Witnesses' prohibition on blood transfusion), and everything would be solved within 45 minutes in the manner that seemed obvious to a 1990s squishy centre-leftist.

[conuly]

You know what? There's a doctor, an atheist, who's become something of a specialist in treating JW's because he's willing to treat their desire to avoid blood transfusions seriously instead of saying "My way or the highway".

If only Stephen had heard of him and taken notes.

(I agree that this does seem very pointed at a Trek-esque view of morality, along with the fact that no, we haven't all up and become atheists and that's okay.)

[pensnest]

And that would have been an unexpected choice in the writing, too! Kid dies — actually, I misunderstood that at first and assumed you meant the kid would die during the operation - Stephen is upset and unsettled and wonders if there was anything in the belief and maybe his soul really did leave his body. And at least has something to think about which might jolt that arrogance. It was just so clear that he'd operate, save the child's life, and the parents would be not grateful but horrified. I don't know how that would work out in real life, with (is it) Jehovah's Witnesses who don't accept blood transfusions?

[conuly]

JWs consider blood transfusions as being akin to violating the prohibition on eating blood, or possibly as cannibalism. I believe some of them are okay with using a transfusion of their own blood stored in advance. Presumably if you did this to them without their consent, they could find a way to ask God to forgive them. It's not quite the same as "Look, that's just where the soul lives!"

There have been court cases about this. It's murky, but the age of the patient and ability to understand their options definitely comes into play.

[mindstalk]

Though I note that IIRC Franklin himself is not an atheist.

[shadowkat]

I saw Bab5 when it first aired - before DVDs, DVRs, streaming, etc. In fact I had to choose between it and DS9, Bab5 won. And you had to hunt for it. It was back in the 1990s. During the Clinton era - yep 1994, before the world turned sideways. Before 2YK, Dubya, 9/11, the Wars, and Trump.

[kmusser]

His arrogance is kind of a defining trait for Dr. Franklin, it comes up as a recurring theme.

[conuly]

You know, I think you may be right.

[conuly]

And it's infuriating every time!

[mindstalk]

"Foundationist", and his 'walkabout' thing later.

[conuly]

Oh yeah.

Hm. Is the whole "Foundationism" religion thing something that seems way more offensive and clueless today than when it aired?

[conuly]

You gotta give them all props for sheer prescience.

[moon_custafer]

I’m also in the camp of “given the nature of this particular sf show, and that the patient isn’t human, how can you be sure this belief isn’t grounded in some fact of their physiology?” Like, idk, maybe their consciousness is distributed throughout their nervous system and surgery on any part of their body carries the personality-altering risks of brain surgery?

[pensnest]

Thanks for the clarification. I always assumed this episode was basically an analagy for JWs (and any other groups with similar beliefs), which I think is true. It gives me pause in my own "but they're wrong and stupid!" response, which is a good thing!

I'm doing a rewatch of the series myself, and have posted a couple of times so far, if you'd like to join in with the discussion. :-)

[thewayne]

I wanna see a House guest appearance on B5!

I wonder if there are any fic on AO3?

[mindstalk]

I don't see why, but I'm not the sort of person to be offended. Seems like a plausible thing for someone to do. One might be offended by Foundationists mining your religion, but should one be offended by Babylon-5 for imagining it? There's the "walkabout" thing, but IIRC Franklin at least credited where he was stealing it from.

There are a lot of religions based on other religions, which might be offensive to members of the original religion, but as an outsider, *shrug*. Christianity to Judaism, Islam to Christianity and Judaism, Mormonism to regular Christianity, Bahai to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam...