Writer: Fiona Avery
Director: Tony Dow

As promising as the concept of this episode is, the way in which it was handled left me quite underwhelmed. Fiona Avery is a talented writer, but there a lot of things in this episode that I felt didn't quite work. Still, it's a lot better than most other shows out there.

For one, the concept of the 48-hour virus shield is not something I'd really have to agree with. Wouldn't it have been better for them to just don space suits on the planet? There's no real scientific basis for a virus shield that makes sense. It seems to be technobabble added to make sure that the actors didn't have to wear space suits for most of the show. Also, the scene where Eilerson was talking to Gideon seemed out of place somehow, we didn't get *why* Eilerson suddenly decided to sport his life views to Gideon. It seemed like an unnessarily expository scene that probably should have been cut.

Yet another nit comes in the acting - from several of the cast it was horrible. Gary Cole was his usual coolness, Dureena was quite good, and Brian Thompson was also not too bad. However, almost everyone else was not even close to the mark. Marjean Holden was not as bad as some had said she was. In comparison to some of the citizens of Theta 49, she was an Oscar contender. I know that B5's acting was often really, really good or downright bad, but some of the acting in this episode really detracted from what could have been a fairly decent episode.

Another small nit comes in the Shadow attack sequence. The Shadow fighters are shown to use the same beams as the big ship, instead of the "spitfire" weapon that B5 showed. Had they used the original firing pattern as well as the old jumpgate design, it would have fit in better with B5. Of course, this is a really small nit, and had the other things been corrected, it probably wouldn't have bothered me that much. In concert with the other faults in this episode, it did catch my notice.

This is an example of a good concept with a poor execution. There are ways that we could better empathize with the colonists, and the whole standoff between the colonists and the Excalibur simply didn't work. All in all, this episode needed some work before it could live up to the excellent episodes that preceded it. However, the ratio of good episodes to bad episodes in Crusade is far higher than most shows reach in their later seasons. Hopefully the next episodes will be up to the caliber of the last two.