cScott's Babylon 5 Parodies


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Episode 514: "The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father. Now Clean Your Room!"

At the Psi Corps headquarters, Bester walks through a white hallway. Signs on the wall read "NO INDEPENDANT THOUGHT", "SLEEP", and "IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU'RE TOO CLOSE". Bester walks into the office of his boss, and meets two new recruits, Lauren and Chen. Bester thinks they're excited about meeting him, mainly because Lauren has written "I Love You" on her eyelids and Chen is wearing a "Chekov Rulez!" button. He offers to take them on a tour, but only if Chen promises to stop asking him what Leonard Nimoy is really like.

As he's leaving, Bester tells his boss that he finished his report on Babylon 5, but he left it at home, so he'll turn it in tomorrow. Chen says that the staff of Babylon 5 doesn't seem to like telepaths very much, even the ones who don't conspire against them or reprogramme their minds. Lauren says she thought Babylon 5 was Bester's main assignment, but Bester assures her that it's not, and points out that he also does some stage work and attends the occasional Trek convention.

Bester tries to break the ice by telling them a joke, but when he gets to the part where the mental patient says "Ivanova told me.", they just stare at him blankly, and he realises that they haven't seen the first four seasons.

Elsewhere, a telepath named Jonathan Harris has just killed another telepath and stolen his Babylon 5 Fan Club Newsletter.

Meanwhile, Bester takes Chen and Lauren to see a telepathic Breakout tournament. Bester tells them that field agents have to be able to play for an hour, or score more than 5000 points. He adds that without this level of training, no human telepath can get ever to the secret bonus round.

Chen and Lauren look into the minds of the contestants, but Lauren says she doesn't like how it feels and wonders how they keep from going insane and killing people. Bester tells her that eventually they get used to it and are able to redirect their energies to constructive purposes like killing mundanes.

He tells them that being a P12 isn't enough. It takes a special kind of person to be a Psi Cop. Chen says that must mean you have to be ruthless, but Bester says he wouldn't say that. He goes on to say that it's actually true, but that he would never say it. Fortunately, being a telepath, he doesn't have to. He goes on to remind them that rogue telepaths are family, so they should be put in awkward and embarassing situations whenever possible.

Chen complains that the rogue telepaths never appreciate all the things that the Psi Corps does for them and that most of the time they don't even call on Mother's Day, or Father's Day either for that matter.

Bester takes them into a theatre, just as the matinee is starting. A man on the screen introduces himself, "Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may recognise me from such Psi Corps propaganda videos as Being a Blip is Never Hip and Is That an Implanted Personality in your Mind, or are you Just Happy to See Me?. Now, I know what you're thinking... no really, I do know what you're thinking. Ha Ha. But seriously, did you know that 42.5% of all telepaths that leave the Corps don't make it even nine months? And I should know, I actually used to be a rogue. Now that was the life! Bad food, bad haircut, no place to live... where do I sign up for that? Ha Ha. But seriously..."

The movie is interrupted when a woman walks in to the theatre and whispers something to Bester. When he reminds her that she's a telepath, she gets embarassed and leaves, but they have to stop watching the movie anyway. Chen is upset that he won't get to see the rest of the movie, but Lauren tells him that it won't kill him to wait until he gets back.

The body of the telepath that was killed has been found and Bester, Lauren and Chen go to the scene to look for clues and so that Bester can show off a bit. He says that he believes that the cause of death was blunt force trauma, but he can't be sure because the killer may have used a large heavy object. Bester suspects the victim's roommate, Jonathan Harris, partly because his friends have said the he was acting strange lately, but mostly because he wrote "KILLMYROOMMATE" and "GOTOBABYLON5" hundreds of times in his diary. Unfortunately, he could've gone anywhere by now.

The investigation is assigned to Bester because Harris is a P10, which makes him dangerous, and because the victim was a student of Bester's, which made him expendable.

Later that night, Bester is in his apartment when Lauren shows up. She said she'd never seen a dead body before, and it made her feel all tingly, but it was too bad it was a telepath. Bester says that the death of a telepath always ruins it for him too. He says that the death of a rogue is okay, but nothing can compare to the death of a mundane... except maybe the death of lots of mundanes.

Lauren asks him how the Corps found him. He starts telling her how is parents were killed in an accident when he was just a month old, but he gets annoyed when he notices that she's comparing his story to the comic book version, so he tells her about his wife instead. He tells her where they live and gives her a picture of his wife along with a list of her usual habits, but when Lauren says not to worry that she won't stalk his wife, he asks her to leave.

As she's leaving, Lauren suggests that they spend the night together. Bester says that his heart belongs to another, but she says that's okay, she'll just make do with the rest of him. He actually considers it briefly, but then decides that he just couldn't stand to hear someone call him "Pavel" during a moment of passion, so he makes her leave.

Immediately after Lauren leaves, there's another knock at Bester's door. He almost doesn't open it, because he's afraid that this time it might be Chen. When he does open the door, he's relieved to see that it's his boss. He's even more relieved that his boss doesn't want to spend the night with him. Unfortunately though, he's being sent to Babylon 5, which is almost as bad.

During a briefing, when Chen asks why they can't just contact security and have Harris picked up, everyone laughs at him for asking such a stupid question. After everyone is dismissed, Bester's boss asks him to stay behind. He says that Harris is a dangerous mind shredder, but that he didn't want the others to know because then they might be careful and not get killed.

Later, Bester is in his quarters having psychotic visions of Harris, when there's a knock at the door. Unfortunately, it's Chen, and even more unfortunately, he wants to know who would win a fight between Kirk and Sheridan. Fortunately though, it's time to leave for Babylon 5, so Bester doesn't have to try to answer.

Meanwhile, on Babylon 5, Harris is in a casino, at a blackjack table. He tells the dealer he doesn't know how to play and that he's definitely not a telepath, absolutely not, no way.

In Hyperspace, Bester's shuttle is docked inside the super-secret Psi Corps mothership. When Chen asks if the ship always stays in hyperspace, Bester tells him yes, they keep it hidden because they're ashamed because it's not as fancy as some of the mundane ships. When Chen asks him how they keep the Warp Core from overheating, Bester just ignores him.

Back on Babylon 5, Harris has surprised everyone by winning lots of money. When he notices that they're thinking about surprising him with an assortment of personal weapons, he leaves, followed by a man named Bryce, who had been watching him all evening.

By this time, Bester's shuttle has arrived. Zack mistakenly suspects that Bester is on Babylon 5 to study entomology, but Bester quickly lets Zack know that they're tracking down a murderer, and that they have full authority to arrest him and bring him back to Earth, along with any accomplices, suspects, or unpleasant mundanes that they encounter along the way.

As they walk away, Bester explains to Lauren and Chen that in the end, the struggle between telepaths and mundanes won't really be much of a struggle at all, because mundanes are all so darned funny.

Meanwhile, one of the men who lost money to Harris accuses him of cheating and demands his money back. Harris, who'd already given all of the money to JMS for letting him be in the episode, apologises. The man gets violent and pushes Harris around. Harris tells the man that he shouldn't do that because He will get upset. He keeps repeating it, over and over. Eventually, the man screams as JMS apparently becomes annoyed and writes him out of the script. Harris walks away, still being followed by Bryce.

Elsewhere, Bester is trying to buy some Centauri buttons from a Drazi, while Lauren and Chen discuss the dangers of angering the scriptwriter. After the Drazi leaves, Bester tells him that he was able to read the Drazi's mind and find out where Harris is staying, plus he picked up some spoilers for the next few episodes. Bester tells Lauren and Chen to stay there while he goes and gets Security, so that Zack can be there to witness the capture.

As soon as Bester is gone, Chen starts tinkering with the door mechanism. Lauren advises against it, but Chen says that he saw Wesley Crusher do it once and he's sure that Bester will be really impressed if he can do it to. After opening the door, he doesn't find anything out of the ordinary, other than the dead body he tripped over when he entered the room. Otherwise, nothing at all.

While Security and Medlab teams are investigating, Zack accuses Bester of the murder. When Bester points out that the man died two days before Bester arrived, Zack asks him where he's hidden the time machine. It turns out that the dead man was a spammer, and they suspect that Harris is now using his e-mail account.

As soon as Zack's attention is diverted, Lauren whispers a question to Bester. He almost reminds her that she's a telepath, but then decides that it would probably embarass her, so he doesn't. He tells her and Chen that the situation may be much worst than they thought, especially if Harris is using the spammer's e-mail account. With that account, together with his telepathic abilities, he could possibly "earn big money fast!!", at which point he might be unstoppable.

Later, in Medlab, Dr. Franklin gives Bester a report on another body that has been found. He says that half of the victims brain cells had exploded from the inside out, and there were no other marks on the body. He goes on to say that he's pretty sure that the victim was killed by Harris, or a really big microwave oven. Bester doesn't think Harris could've done it because it would require a P12 and Harris is a P10. When Dr. Franklin says that maybe they made a mistake, Bester says that they don't make mistakes. If they said he's a P9 then he's a P8, no question.

Outside Medlab, Bester takes Lauren and Chen aside to tell them that he's now pretty sure that the situation is really really bad, but he doesn't want to say more, until Chen has had a chance to get killed first. He tells Lauren to contact Psi Corp Headquarters and have them send copies of Harris' insane ramblings, and he tells Chen to go look for Harris in the seediest most dangerous places he can find. Before they leave, Bester warns Lauren to be careful.

As soon as Chen enters a casino, the bartender says that they can't serve him because that would be illegal, wink, wink, what would he like. Chen asks the bartender if he's seen Harris, but instead of answering, the bartender just asks him if he's ever seen a grown Pak'Ma'Ra naked. He's goes on to say that the hump on their back isn't really a hump, but before he can say that it's really a stack of rejected scripts, Chen sees Harris and hurries off to call Bester and get killed.

Later, Zack tells Bester he's sorry that Chen died, but Bester doesn't believe him, mainly because he keeps giggling and making funny faces. He goes on to tell Bester that there were no witnesses, but that the BabCom unit recorded the murder and the video has been selling well, especially since they set it to music. Ignoring Zack as usual, Bester notices that the killer in the video has a tattoo on his hand, which means it isn't Harris.

Meanwhile, Harris and Bryce are dividing up the profits from the "Psi Cop Killer" video. Bryce asks Harris if he wants to count his share, but Harris says no, if Bryce were cheating him he would already know it and Bryce would be dead. Bryce decides not to mention how easily he took out the other telepath. Instead he asks Harris how he ended up on Babylon 5. Harris says he doesn't remember. One minute he was doing a bit part in an episode of "LA Law" and the next he was here, playing an insane Psi Corp trainee.

Bester and Lauren go through copies of Harris' papers. At first, they're confused because the papers are in different handwritings and have different names, but then they realise that the papers were probably written by different actors who tried out for the role of Harris. Then Lauren norices something. During the last recording they have of Harris, he keeps shouting that "He" won't like it and making all sorts of mysterious references to "Him". Based on this, along with the fact that one of the papers was dated 2264, Bester is able to conclude that Harris was actually sent back in time from two years in the future by JMS to make sure that Psi Corps is getting ready for the feature film.

Almost immediately, Harris and Bryce are ambushed by Bester and station security. The fight scene is brief and in no time, Bryce is in custody and Harris is lying curled up on the floor, mumbling episode titles from "Crusades".

In Medlab, Franklin treats Bester's wounded shoulder and offers him a lollipop if he'll do the Chekov accent just once before he leaves, but just then Lauren arrives to tell them that the shuttle is ready to leave, and Bester is too embarassed to do the accent in front of her.

Later, in Hyperspace, Bester and Lauren are in the shuttle with the two unconcious prisoners. Lauren offers to give Bester a back rub, if he'll please call her "Kiptin". He quickly changes the subject by mentioning that they still have to deal with the mundane. Lauren asks if she can do it. Bester agrees and Lauren quickly sends Bryce out the airlock to die in hyperspace. Bester is so impressed that he can't bring himself to tell her that all he really meant for her to do was make sure that the mundane's restraints were secure.

Bester's stirring rendetion of "The Psi Corps Anthem"


Next time, on an all new parody of an encore presentation of a previously seen episode of Babylon 5...

Episode 515: "Mediations Under Duress"

in which the Drazi start demanding answers, Sheridan tries to maintain plausable deniability, and Lennier gets a chance to prove how seriously he takes the second part of the Ranger slogan.


Previous episode...

Episode 513: "The Ragged Edge of Night"

in which the mysterious aliens leave behind a witness, Garibaldi takes a trip to the Drazi homeworld, and Delenn gets a bizarre late-night phone call.


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