By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Babylon 5 got a lot of mileage out of analyzing cultural differences and creating scenarios where there’s no easy answer. Immediately following the ethical conundrum of “Deathwalker”, “Believers” tossed the station’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) into an impossible situation real medical professionals deal with all the time. He can save a child’s life, but citing religious beliefs, the parents won’t let him operate. It’s one of the most divisive episodes of the series, and even today, fans will endlessly debate who was in the right.
A No-Win Situation
“Belivers” isn’t subtle. Dr. Franklin know she can save the life of the young Oneed alien Shon, except to do so would require cutting into his body. The boy’s parents explain that cutting into them releases the spirit and leaves a physical husk behind. In their culture, only animals are cut. That presents a dilemma for the Doctor, who can’t save the boys’ life any other way.
Dr. Franklin goes to Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) for support, but Sinclair sides with the parents, opting to respect their culture. The parents meanwhile, go to the various ambassadors for support, but none of them want to get in the middle of an ethical dilemma. Dr. Franklin goes ahead and performs the surgery and saves Shon’s life. Which is why his parents, considering Shon’s spirit to be gone, kill their child back in their quarters.
It’s a gut punch of an ending. It’s also wide open for interpretation. The end result, as Sinclair pointed out to Dr. Franklin, was always going to be the same. “Believers” doesn’t set up anyone as being right or wrong. How you feel comes down to your own belief system. Unless you read the novelization of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s The Siege a year earlier, and then you might also be thinking, “I’ve seen this before.”
Star Trek Legends Helped Build Babylon 5
The Siege had nothing to do with the Season 2 arc of the same name, but it did include a subplot with Dr. Bashir struggling to deal with helping the son of a spiritual leader. In this story, the child is saved, but the alien marriage is broken up when the religious father leaves the family. If it weren’t for the simmering feud during the 90s between Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 fans it would have been easily overlooked, after all, it’s a plot that’s appeared in countless shows before. Though the plot similarities were accidental, “Believers” still has plenty of connections to Star Trek.
For starters, “Believers” was written by David Gerrold, the same man who wrote Star Trek: The Original Series “Trouble with Tribbles.” Shon’s mother, M’ola was played by Tricia O’Neil, who you might know better as Captain Rachel Garrett from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” We didn’t know then how good we had it with both Star Trek and Babylon 5 airing at the same time.
“Believers” is a standalone episode that has no direct impact on the overall story of Babylon 5, and it can be skipped during rewatches. What it does do, is it gives Dr. Franklin a chance to shine, develops both him and Sinclair with one eye on the future, and continues to establish the relationship Babylon 5’s command has with the hundreds of different alien cultures on board.
