B5: Soul Hunter

The episode begins with an unknown ship coming out of the hyperspace vortex and veering out of control towards Babylon 5. This might just be me, but if I was building that station, I would make sure that it's not directly in front of the vortex. You know, so somebody can't just send a bomb through there? Actually, I guess if someone really wanted to destroy the station they could just send an unmanned ship through there, because that will apparently be enough to get the job done.

Sinclair manages to grab the ship before it runs its course, however, and brings the pilot onto the station. While the alien is still in sickbay, the Minbari Ambassador Delenn recognizes him as a "soul hunter." The alien has the ability to sense oncoming death, and he claims that he travels around, capturing the souls of people before they die. It's nice that the show is taking some risks here to transcend other sci-fi series, but it doesn't really seem to fit with what they've already established here. You can't just throw in a spiritual aspect into the early first season of a series without leading up to it and expect the audience to be awed by it. You need to take some steps first in order to convince even the most skeptical viewers that there is a possibility that souls and "life after death" exists.

Neelix's game spread far after Voyager returned home

(You need to be a real ST: Voyager freak to get this one...)

I guess my main point is that it's difficult to introduce such a topic at this early stage in the series; most of the time it just makes the show look silly. The idea behind the soul hunter is somewhat interesting, but they didn't really expand on his motivations and ended up depicting him as a gone-crazy alien who wants to capture souls for some evil reason. He escapes and is about to capture the soul of Delenn, but Sinclair arrives and uses the soul capturer machine on the soul hunter. Oh, the irony.

This episode took a crack at something completely unrelated to the plot, but it ultimately didn't accomplish much. It was better when it focused around how the different aliens on the station were interacting rather than around a cheesy season 1 plot device.

Score: 2

Best Quote: "If that's the case, then we just have to figure out who's going to die."

Best Moment: Soul capturer captures the soul capturer