Day of the Dead (review)

Day of the Dead is an episode of Babylon 5, occurring in the Fifth Season, and centered around the Brakiri "Day of the Dead", a ceremony suspiciously like the same holiday, as celebrated in Mexico. The episode was written by Neil Gaiman, and was the only episode in Seasons 3, 4 and 5 not written by J. Michael Straczynski. It also featured comic magicians Penn and Teller.

There is a word used in geek culture to describe something utterly appealing to Geeks: Squeeee!. And such a word would certainly apply to an episode of Babylon 5, a geek cult favorite, by Neil Gaiman, another geek cult favorite. And perhaps with these expectations, it is hard to judge the episode fairly. It is also interesting to see where this episode fits in to Gaiman's arc as a writer. The Sandman is dense, multifaceted and challenging. Since writing it, Gaiman's writing has seemed to drift further to the center, in some cases seeming downright twee. And perhaps this episode is also colored by my later reading of Gaiman, but I also find it not particularly challenging, especially given the fact that Babylon 5, even at its laziest, is pretty challenging already.

The plot of the episode involves the Brakiri temporarily buying a part of the station so they can celebrate a rare religious ritual of theirs, the Day of the Dead. Captain Elizabeth Lochley, believing it to be a way to create cultural understanding, goes along with this plan. That night, as the station enters darkness, the residents of that section are cut off from the rest of the station, and are visited by long dead friends or lovers of theirs. Lochley herself meets a (Platonic?) girlfriend of hers, who died of a drug overdose. Londo Mollari meets the Lady Adair. Lennier meets Mister Morden. And Michael Garibaldi meets Dodgers, a one-time lover of his from the Second Season. Their reunions are, as could be expected, both odd and poignant.

For the true Babylon 5 fan, some of this is a treat. Specifically, any chance to see Mister Morden, especially in an almost sympathetic light, is fun. However, overall, I was curious as to what the point was. The episode didn't seem to have a great deal to say about life and death and loss that hadn't been said earlier in the series, either in terms of the series cosmology or the viewers. In fact, given the fact that Babylon 5 had only occasionally brushed with the supernatural, the episode seemed like a gimmick. And there was no flights of wit or creativity on Gaiman's part, above and beyond the overall flow of the series. And in some cases, it seemed downright cliche. The treatment of Captain Lochley's younger years seemed less like a great insight into her (regrettably underdeveloped) character, and more like Neil Gaiman sitting down and figuring out how he could write a scene that would be sympathetic to women...and ended up seeming like a Grade B Lifetime Movie.

Somehow, by mixing together Babylon 5, which was good at asking big questions, and Neil Gaiman, who was also good at asking big questions, and then asking about Life and Death, the biggest questions of all...the episode just ended up being mediocre and predictable.