Babylon 5 (TV Series) The War Prayer (1994) User Reviews

Anti-alien attacks cause tensions to rise on Babylon 5

[Tweekums · 8/10 · 5 June 2018]

Shortly after this episode opens a revered Minbari is attacked by a group of humans who are against involvement with aliens and particularly objected to her as she was due to recite her work on Earth. It emerges that she wasn't the first victim but she is the most high profile. An investigation is underway but discovering those responsible and who is behind them won't be easy. The situation isn't helped when G'Kar starts to whip up alien resentment. While all this is going on one of Ivanovo's old flames visits Babylon 5 as do two young Centauri who are in love and wish to avoid marriages that have been arranged for them.

Given the variety of alien species and the various tensions an episode which deals with racial tension was inevitable. The topic was handled well showing the unpleasantness of the bigoted attackers as well as the risks of things escalating. The episode introduces the 'Home Guard', humans who want Earth to have nothing to do with aliens; I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't the last we hear of them. The secondary stories are interesting; most notably the one involving the two young Centauri; this tells us more about their culture and we learn that Londo has three wives who he is happy to be seventy five light years away from! Peter Jurasik is on great form in the role. While not a major part of the story this episode nicely explains why certain characters who appeared in the pilot movie don't appear in the series. Overall this was a fairly solid episode.

I like it better than later seasons' episodes

[mgl-92037 · 7/10 · 16 May 2022]

I'm rewatching Babylon 5 from the beginning and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I think season 1 may be the best for me. I did not care for the long arc of war which started later. I also didn't like the replacement commander, Boxleitner. He's not just a terrible actor, he mugs for the camera like nobody else in the series.

In season 1 I enjoy the feel of learning about the station and the people.

Who is really superior?

[rbr-41299 · 8/10 · 13 June 2016]

This is an excellent dramatic episode, containing both personal pathos and an acted out parable of racism, as well as a deft blending of various sub-plots. The pathos comes from not only the personal attacks on a Minbari poet and the Centauri young people, but the revelation of Londo's personal history. His recollection of his father's saying, "my shoes are too tight" is one of the memorable quotes of the series. The ruse of Sinclair to draw out the Home Guard assailants led to the tense moment of threat to the Abbai ambassador's life and her climactic rescue and arrest of the guilty parties.

"The War Prayer" is one of those episodes in which JMS seeks to address a current issue. "America First" has advocates in all the political parties. At the other end of the political spectrum are the globalists who not only support free trade but also a world government. The "Earth First" group in this episode, of course, are not simply focused on the issue of trade as represented in the American debate over NAFTA or the WTO, but really are supremacists who want Earth to dominate other races. They're against the policy of allowing aliens to live on Earth, although why any should want to do so is beyond me. (Do polar bears live in the tropics?) It's easy, of course, to be against the Earth First crowd since they resort to violence to express their racist feelings of superiority. However, I can't help but feel there is a bit of hypocrisy in the shocked outrage of the Centauri's who had at one time subdued other races with far more violence. The Minbari know they are superior to the humans, but at least attempt a level of cooperation, although Delenn and the Grey Council have manipulated the humans to achieve their own agenda. The Narns, too, may well harbor their own feelings of superiority. What the episode doesn't address is the origin of racism, nor does it necessarily suggest a solution.

Ironically, the very theory of evolution, upon which the B5 universe is built, can be blamed for racism. It has been demonstrated that the positing of three distinct races (Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid) led to the notion that these races were genetically different and that one race must be superior to the others. In the early twentieth century evolutionistic scientists believed that people of African descent were little better than animals, and so an African pygmy was actually captured and put on display in the New York City Zoo as an evolutionary development of the ape. Africans and aborigines in Australia were captured, killed and their corpses shipped to England for dissection and study. (Interestingly, it was the outrage of Christians that put a stop to this barbaric practice.) Later Hitler accepted the evolutionistic view of anthropology and used it to justify the holocaust. In reality there is no scientific evidence that humans are different under the skin. JMS, even though he is an evolutionist, did attempt to get people to think about how they regard others who are different. I wonder what difference it could make in our culture if the truth of one race, the human race, was reclaimed.

Filler

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 2 January 2007]

For much of the first season of Babylon 5, the series still hadn't established any sort of over-arching plot to connect the episodes like it would have in seasons 2 through 5. In some ways, it was as if the genius behind the series, Michael Staczynski was still trying to feel for a sense of direction. Because of this, so many of the season one episodes are self-contained in that they don't connect well with previous or later episodes. This is pretty much the way of sci-fi shows like Star Trek, but for B-5, this makes these earlier episodes less satisfying.

Of all the early episodes, this one most epitomizes the word "filler". While this didn't mean it was a bad episode, not a whole lot is established in this show other than the fact that Vir is a nice guy and there is some growing xenophobia on Earth. Decent but very skip-able as well.

Still relevant today

[robertdlar · 10/10 · 13 March 2023]

Racism is the key talking point of this episde, but I am neither an expert on the matter nor am I going to pontificate about my opinion but I will say this, the only way to overcome it is through intelligence, understanding and compassion. I also applaud any show that addresses this by showing people that there is beauty in all creatures. No Show did it better than Babylon 5.

As far as this episode just being a 'filler' there is nothing wrong with that. JMS knew he had 5 years to set up and carry out his plot arch and in season 1. This episode, like many this season, Shows you more things about all the primaries, introduces a few of the other aliens and gives insight on what is happening on Earth, a place we never get to see.

This is also a very important episode to show you just how Good of a person Vir is, how Lando has a sense of justice, and how G'kar is always willing to fight against percieved injustice. This was a very important episode in spite of the fact it may not seem to be.

The War Prayer

[Scarecrow-88 · 5/10 · 3 June 2012]

A radical hate group from Earth called Home Guard are attacking prominent members of alien races on board Babylon 5 which is stirring up dissension and anger, with fights breaking out and hostility brewing…sufficed to say, Sinclair and Garibaldi's lives have become quite difficult: managing a station, especially security, running an investigation, and keeping an eye out for possible suspects will not be an easy task. Minor episode is basically designed to speak out against hate crimes against race or creed. Pro-Earth is no different than the Klu Klux Klan, really, and the bile that leader, Malcolm Biggs (Tristan Rogers) spews is common with those who use hate against other races as a means to incite and encourage violence. Anyway, the unrest on Babylon 5 is palpable, although Sinclair's resolution of this conflict is a bit too neat and tidied up for my liking. Still, I think you realize that the unease between humans and other alien species is quite visibly shaky and not too much of what took place in this episode would be tolerated. The intense speech made by a hot-tempered G'Kar, stirring up the other species on Babylon 5, whipping them into a near-riot, would just be a prelude to an uprising beyond control if Sinclair didn't catch the culprits behind the attacks on his station. Meanwhile, victims of the Home Guard include runaway Centauri lovers, Kiron (Rodney Eastman) and Aria (The Wonder Years' Danica McKellar), and a famous Minbari poet named Shaal Mayan (Nancy Lee Grahn) on tour, one of her stops on Babylon 5. Londo Mollari, enraged at Kiron and Aria's eloping from their homeworld, finds it in his heart to help them with his aide, Vir Cotto's (Stephen Furst) urging. Also a surprising development, Malcolm just so happens to be a former lover of Ivanova's! She will have to help Sinclair nab Malcolm before his rhetoric and use of cloaked hunters orchestrate multiple assassinations on Babylon 5 and Earth. Nothing special, but does point out that Earth and other planetary species have a long way to go before a complete trust would be reached.