User reviews

This stand-alone story opens with two people arriving on Babylon 5. One, Walker Smith, is a wrongly disgraced boxer who wants to regain his reputation by being the first human to compete in the Mutai, an alien martial arts contest. The second is a rabbi who is a family friend of Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova; he wants her to formally mourn her father according to Jewish tradition, something she is reluctant to do. Smith is initially refused permission to compete but then he is approached by an alien who tells him there is another way into the sport; it won't be easy though as it involves formally challenging the champion.

After the previous episode which introduced major plot arcs it was a bit of a disappointment to get a stand-alone episode; especially one largely centred on a guest character. The Mutai bouts are pretty intense and does look like a real martial art; presumably inspired by the identical sounding Muay Thai. For a single episode character Walker Smith is entertaining enough; Gregory McKinney does a fine job, especially during the final bout. The secondary story, involving Ivanova, provides some decent character development but isn't as interesting. Overall not one of the better episode unless you are a fan of martial arts.

Yes, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually don't think that this episode deserves such a low rating of 5.8 (which is generally considered to be "very bad" by IMDb episode rating standards). I believe this episode can be considered mediocre and forgettable at the very worst, but not downright terrible.

The A plot is okay. Nothing particularly outstanding or atrocious. However, the B plot regarding Ivanova's overcoming her feelings of grief and guilt is just great. A really great example of high-quality character writing in a sci-fi show. Not to mention that her acting in this episode is probably one of the best in this series so far. So this B-plot alone makes this episode a worthwhile addition to the story.

This series just keeps on rolling. Not only does this episode give us way more insight into Ivanova's character, it also puts Garibaldi in his element with an old friend, culminating in a finale that is both heartbreaking and heartpounding. Perfectly captures the essence of what it means to fight adversity.

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 and in this case, the show had a guest writer who seemed to have no feel for where the show was headed. 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.

In this episode, an old friend of Garibaldi who we have never heard about before suddenly appears on the base to announce he's going to fight in the Mu-tai--some sort of macho fighting competition where no human has fought before. In so many ways, it is highly reminiscent of the cheesy Jean-Claude Van Damme film BLOODSPORT. And, totally uncharacteristically for this show, the episode is ultra-violent and will alienate much of the audience. This is really like a WWF episode merged with BABYLON 5! Ugghh! What a horrible episode! In fact, there's very little to like about it, as the show does NOTHING to further the ongoing plots of the show and everything in the episode seems to have no context. In fact, some of the characters, such as Garibaldi, behave in ways that seem antithetical to who they have been and will be on the show. As a result of this lack of regard for continuity and a really dumb ultra-macho plot line to boot, this is a rotten episode through and through!

I think it was very much a B5 episode in that it showed the characters had lives before the station ever existed. You see this in later episode in the series when the writers take the focus away from the main characters as in 'A view from the gallery'. The story arch was contained in Ivanova having to deal with the death of her father. The character building skills of the writers is what kept me watching the show. That and the knowledge that it only planed to run for 5 years gave me hope of a complete story arch. Consider this,one could see the Mu-tai as a simile of the coming conflict. One race pitted against another far stronger than itself but one it must face all the same. Remember the boxer tried to explain it to Garibaldi that the match was more about finding your limits in facing adversity than anything else. AKA the Shadow Way.