Babylon 5 (TV Series) GROPOS (1995) User Reviews

Pretty good but a tad predictable at the end

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 8 January 2007]

The episode begins by Earth Force commandeering the base to use it as a staging point for an invasion of a planet that is involved in a civil war. It seems VERY odd to Sheridan and his crew that the Earth could become involved in this matter, as it doesn't to involve anyone but the inhabitants of the planet AND because using B-5 that way violates the purpose for its creation! But, considering they are ordered to billet the 25000 soldiers, they don't have much choice.

The main concurrent theme is relationships. First, coincidentally, the General in charge of the invasion is the Doctor's father. This brings up some interesting points concerning their relationship and how tough it is to grow up in a military home. Secondly, the way the military relate to the crew of B-5 is interesting--and often VERY tense.

The ending of the episode is very sobering and points to the utter futility of it all. A bit preachy? YES. But still pretty stirring and worth seeing.

GROPOS Glitches

[rbr-41299 · 7/10 · 28 May 2016]

I write this review from the standpoint of being a devoted fan of Babylon 5. Having a served in the U.S. Army for several years in combat infantry divisions, I found GROPOS to be a particularly appealing episode. I think most military members are very satisfied with how JMS portrayed the military throughout the series as far as faithfulness to customs and history. There are some glitches, but nothing that actually detracts from a story. There is an interesting contrast when in "A Distant Star" the security personnel in customs snap to attention when Captain Maynard passes, but in "All Alone in the Night" the guards virtually ignore General Hague when he comes aboard.

So, too, in "GROPOS," when General Franklin orders "at ease" Sheridan and Ivanova assume the proper position, but Garibaldi surprisingly puts his hands in his pockets, a clear violation of military code. (If a soldier stands around with his hands in his pockets, he might suffer a rude joke.) I noticed that everyone properly addressed the GROPOS Command Sergeant Major as "Sergeant Major," except for Ivanova. She committed the faux pas of calling him "Sergeant," which would be considered demeaning for a senior non-commissioned officer.

As for the operation on Akdor, JMS, writing the episode in 1995, seems to have conceived the tactical assault from memories of Viet Nam rather than the modern strategy used in the first Gulf War, which occurred in 1990-1991. Where was the air support that could have taken out the mine fields and leveled the fortress? Why didn't the EA Division level the fortress with rockets from ground artillery? Why not level the fortress with missiles from the Destroyer in orbit? Why not nuke the fortress? There is such a thing as a neutron weapon that kills without destroying the infrastructure.

Why didn't the infantry attack at night? In the Gulf War most campaigns were initiated at night. And, what was the point of a helicopter assault as was commonly used in Viet Nam? Today helicopters are not flown close enough to an objective to receive direct fire from the enemy. The infantry makes far more use of light armored vehicles to take them to an objective. I would expect that military tactics and weaponry would get better two hundred years from now, not worse. This aspect of GROPOS sucked!

One distasteful element was the media coverage. JMS probably didn't intend any criticism of the media, but in a sense it was realistic. No military leader would ever allow reporters to take recognizable pictures of soldiers lying dead on the battlefield. It is the height of insensitivity for information on fatalities to be released by the media before the military has the chance to inform the next of kin. But, the reality is that too many reporters are more interested in their scoop than whether they cause grief to families or give away intelligence to the enemy.

In spite of these detractors the exploration of relationships was well done. The performances of Paul Winfield and Richard Biggs are particularly noteworthy.

Some Good, Some Bad

[themightyservo · 7/10 · 2 March 2019]

The story-moving parts of the episode are good, and there's some good character development with Dr. Franklin.

But alas, another review, another opportunity to quote Lore Sjöberg's Law of Cinematic Inaccuracy: "Movies get everything wrong. Hacking-based movies are laughable to hackers, military-based movies are laughable to members of the armed forces, and Indiana Jones movies are laughable to archeologists." (Still around on web archive's version of Brunching Shuttlecocks.)

JMS would've benefitted from hiring on a military techincal advisor, or else having pushed one onto the production crew to keep this from looking silly. All it would've taken was an average NCO to trim away the ridiculous.

I'm not going to fault any tactics issues messed up (another reviewer already did that, with spoilers), but I will fault the military culture that isn't understood. The ground force units are undisciplined bordering on absurd.

The lack of uniformity in haircuts gives it away to begin with (seriously, how hard is it to hire actors and actresses with short hair for this sort of thing? even if they're all low-regs?), and with the fact that they're a military force that consists of men and women who look to largely be in their late 20s to early 40s and who seem incapable of promoting.

We're told Dodger, for example, is a PFC. In pretty much all modern land militaries, initial ranks begin at private, with Private First Class being a "promotion" that is typically a gimme. It's a promotion earned in a matter of months, if having to be earned at all. It's the rank that most 18 year olds in the US military achieve simply by being present. It's the "trainee" nametag coming off.

If we're to assume that Earth Force is a volunteer military, the rank and age conflicts prevalent in the cast are silly. If we're to assume they're a conscript military where age is irrelevant, then the discipline issues and trope "motivational" stuff is silly.

There seems to be no Guard force or Shore Patrol at all for the Earth Force unit, leading to unrealistic escalation of conflicts. Troops going on liberty at a friendly port is something militaries have had to deal with for thousands of years, and there are procedures for it that could be acknowledged and still leave room for drama.

I don't consider any of these to be massive faults because the substance of the episode related to the main characters is good (well, without going into spoilers there is a character who's oblivious to something they shouldn't have been especially based on their background that ties in with my military culture complaints, but it's not a dealbreaker) - I do however lament that in a series that otherwise really does good looks at characters and backgrounds that there's such a lost opportunity to actually look at ground force units in a more meaningful way.

Excellent

[VenVes · 24 July 2018]

Terrific worldbuilding with an introduction to a different section of Earth Force. We also have some stirring moments with Dr. Franklin, as well as an ending not to be missed. Excellent episode.

Not an easy episode to review

[unnamed-32145 · 8/10 · 5 June 2023]

People in the reviews keep comparing this to U. S. Army activities. But it is not as easy as that.

From some other POV, I see more similarities to things like the involvement of the Soviets in the Asian countries like Afghanistan back in the 1980ies. The more I watched this episode, the more I saw it. Just look at it, there is a government who wants to gain some political influence in an extreme and independent part of the world, by helping another puppet (or weak) government which wants an external power to be their ally. And they have burned lots of young lives there in Afghanistan, for no good reason after all.

Emotional Ride

[robertdlar · 10/10 · 4 April 2023]

Is anything in a spoiler in a show over 30 years old? If you have not seen this episode then don't read any further.

Why can't we get this kind of writing anymore? JMS and D'Tillo did an outstanding job getting you emotionally invested in the GROPOS PFC Large, Yang and specially Dodger. In less than 20 minutes you had true pathos for those characters and were devistated when you found out they were dead. These days writers seem to have a hard time get you that invested in a protagonist over 10 episodes. Think modern writers could take a lesson from B5.

I have read all the other reviews and largely agree with them, but I feel I must point out a few things. One, this is 2259 and we do not know what changes were made to the military to criticize how they do things now. At the time this was written women were not even allowed in combat yet JMS had the vision to not only include them but show they kicked butt as well as the men. Two; this episode is about war and death so the battle, and tactics are not important. It was about showing another side of Earth Alliance and military service in the 23rd century. We didn't get to see the attack so we do not know what they did leading up to the few shots they had. Knowing all we know now, I am certain they did all they could to bomb the defense from orbit and use air support, but this was not some mundane 3rd world dictator using 20 year old weapons, this was a modern enemy who were equal to the EA. So we cannot make any assumptions on how the battle was conducted from the 30 seconds of clip we saw. Also keep in mind B5 was on a very limited budget and anything they did was going to be CGI and very expensive. Lastly, as far as the dress codes and hair styles and all, as I said above we do not know how loose they play it in the future. I now even today things are different than they were 50 years ago.

I also want to address what someone posted as a goof about there only being a General and a Sgt. Major present. While they were the only ones with 'speaking roles' I clearly saw other officers there with the General, specially in the briefing with Sheridan.

Anyway a 10 might be a little high for this episode, but I always start with a 7 then add or subtract as I see fit, and I do not see any of the concerns others have as a negative, the interactiong with Franklin and his Father explains so much about his personality and why he is the way he is. The General and Sheridan elude to changes in the universe and even Earth Dome under, and the emotional ending is huge, even if it was anticipated. I have seen this episode multiple times and I still get emotional at the end which is a testimate to how great this show really is.