W. Morgan Sheppard as the Soul Hunter is brilliant. I mean, he'd be sort of scary enough as is, given his role, but his ritualistic line delivery and presence are excellent, and build a core around the episode that it badly needs.
Mira Furlan as Delenn gets an odd mix of emphatic passion and being the damsel in distress. We learn a lot more about her, and her past, teeing up all sorts of goodness for the future as a major player in the saga, but aside from trying to blow the Soul Hunter's brains out early on, she has very little agency here.
This ep also serves as our introduction to Richard Biggs Dr. Stephen Franklin — cocky, smart, on top of the world. Heh.
The episode itself is an odd demonstration of B5's mix of hard SF (maneuvering ships in Zero G) and softer, more fantasy elements (souls as something that can be captured and that have an opportunity to pass on to something else). The issue about souls gets a lot of explanation, from Franklin's dismissal of a duplicated "personality matrix," to Delenn's belief in reincarnation, to the Soul Hunter's insistence that souls must be preserved or forever lost. This question of souls will play a very big role in the story to come, and is in some very subtle ways arguably the most significant piece of info in the ep.
One of the niftiest bits here is the introduction of "Downbelow" in the station — the idea that B5 is big enough, and human society grungy enough, that there would be places where ne'erdowells and the underclass get stuck, and that there would be organized crime hanging out there, too. Refreshing, and full of possibilities (some of which we'll see in future episodes — though not, unfortunately, the pre-CG-for-alien-characters N'grath).
Most dramatic point: The Soul Hunter grapples with Sinclair: "Why do you fight for her? She's Satai. Satai! I have seen her soul. They are using you!" Yup, plenty of plots rattling around B5, and Sinclair's just realized he's smack-dab in the middle of one.
Most amusing point: Not a lot, but you can always count on Ivanova.
Ivanova: Doesn't matter. If we lived 200 years we'd still be human, we'd still make the same mistakes.
Franklin: You're a pessimist.
Ivanova: I'm Russian, doctor. We understand these things.
Most arc-ish point: Lots of them here, but probably Sinclair doing some after-hours digging into the meaning of "Satai" and what that says about Delenn — and about B5 and himself.
Overall rating: 2/5 – Some very yummy bits, but some awkward growing-pains ones as well … and a bit too monster-of-the-week, even if it's a monster that talks and is quite nicely creepifying.
Guide page: “Soul Hunter”
[to Sinclair] “Minbari: jealous, selfish, private. We have saved only a few – very rare. The rarest of all, their leader Dukat, dying; your fault, your war; the pinnacle of Minbari evolution. We came, I, others. They made a wall of bodies to stop us! He died. And his dreams, his ideas – all that …
I was never a B5 fan, but now, after reading your reviews, I may rethink my position and give it another go.
Within the bounds, @Ellie, of it being a mid-90s show, it is for my money one of the best SF series of all times, benefiting from both a decent measure of intelligence and in having an overarcing creative vision translated into it being fairly coherent 5-year saga, rather than simply a collection of episodes. While that’s, if not SOP, something most SF series give at least lip service to today, at that time it was revolutionary.
I just put it at the top of my Netflix queue. It’s the first three episodes and I find myself looking forward to it.