The Minbari Sleep Exam
One of the odd things about the Minbari in Babylon 5 is that in order to marry someone, you must spend the night watching the fiance sleep. Delenn springs this weird custom on a surprised Sheridan during the series and I always thought it was a little creepy. I’m just saying, if Leanne sat up watching me sleep all night, she’d see me with my mouth open and drooling on the pillow… not to mention my notoriously wild caveman bed head. Not sure I’d qualify for life partnership based on the Minbari Sleep Exam.
Well, I think B5 kind of lost its way after they went to zha’ha’dum. It still had its moments, but sank completely in season 5 (except for the Centauri arc)
Well Season 4 was rushed because they were told they were getting canceled then they got a season 5 and didn’t have anything left to put into it.
I know a guy who works as a translator. Once he was paid his $30+ wage to translate Samoan for someone about to take a sleep study. He had to stay in the facility while the sleep study was conducted, so he simply went into another room and slept too.
He ended up getting paid for 8 hours of sleep at his $30+ wage that night. Plus mileage there and back. D’oh!
Yeah the sleep exam is one of the weirdest parts of Babylon 5. I always laughed at the explanation, something about seeing the persons true self when they were sleeping. Maybe Minbari start whispering all of their psychopathic tendencies when they sleep?
If you can sit and watch someone drooling, snoring, snorting and perhaps occasionally farting, for 8 hours straight, and still want to marry them, then it must be the real thing 🙂
No love for B5 in BMS…
Gotta be a strip using this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op2jLtbzWJI
Captain Susan Ivanova: [about the First Ones leaving] I’m not letting them leave here without saying yes.
Marcus Cole: Really? But how do you propose stopping them – perhaps a big red-and-white sign with the word ‘stop’ on it? I’ll put a bucket on my head and pretend to be the Vorlon god Boogee.
Captain Susan Ivanova: That’s it!
Marcus Cole: Fine. I’ll get a bucket.
3 minutes in on this clip.
I can see Vader or Biggs or Akbar (or practically anybody) wearing a bucket, holding a stop sign, and claiming to be a the Vorlon God Boogee.
Perhaps Akbar can do it after his It’s a Trap line. Someone can tell him to do something (about the Death Star Being operable) and he responds with the Boogie costume, and a stop sign?
What about the badgers line when Marcus is trying to get Ivonova’s attention. That was great.
Now who in this story would actually put badgers in their pants to get someone’s attention… hmm…
“Who knew they were French?”
Have to say Marcus was probably my favourite B5 character. That blend of likeable but sarcastic bastard.
Like an upbeat Avon.
Dawww… and I liked B5. 😉
Season 4 (late) and 5 were a little rough due to cancellation and network changes. The sleeping thing is less creepy if you notice that she leaves once Sheridan is completely asleep. She waits for his features to relax to see his “true face”. She most certainly did not spent the entire night staring at him — coz, yeah, that’d be a lot creepy.
Now the Technomages… they were all sorts of awesome. Too bad Crusade was such a horrible show and got cancelled. There was going to be a lot of Tm love in that show!
It kind of makes sense. Remember that the night that Delenn was watching Sheridan sleep in his quarters on Babylon 5, she was also looking around his place. And, people are most inclined to voice their fears or hopes while sleeping. On top of that, it might be something tracing back to before Valen, There is a certain degree of trust extended to letting someone watch you while you are at your most vulnerable. or letting them free to move around and look at your snowglobes and porn collection without you being able to immediately defend it..
Will the Daleks be making an appearance in BMS ROTJ? Because I know of a fan-created Dalek alphabet you could use for whatever.