Ceremonies of Light and Dark

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“Ceremonies of Light and Dark”
Babylon 5 episode
Episode no. Season 3
Episode 11
Guest stars William Forward (Lord Refa)
Don Stroud (Boggs)
Paul Perri (Sniper)
Harlan Ellison (Sparky the Computer)
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by John Flinn, III
Production no. 311
Original airdate 8 April 1996
Episode chronology
← Previous Next →
"Severed Dreams" "Sic Transit Vir"
List of Babylon 5 episodes

Ceremonies of Light and Dark is an episode from the third season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5.

Contents

[edit] Plot synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Undercover members of the Nightwatch target Delenn.

[edit] Sparky the Computer

Sparky the Computer was an artificial intelligence program from the Babylon 5 television show science fiction universe. Sparky was featured in the episode Ceremonies of Light and Dark, just following the Babylon 5 station leaving the Earth Alliance. Sparky was portrayed by Harlan Ellison

The Sparky the Computer personality was originally installed into the Babylon 5 computer as construction on the station was being finished and the station went on-line. Engineers decided to try having a computer with a personality run the station, but they quickly shut the program down after realizing that the artificial personality wasn't working correctly.

Since that time the personality had laid dormant in the Babylon 5 computer systems. Sparky the Computer was not removed from the system and was quickly forgotten. Sparky reemerged just after Babylon 5 declared independence from Earth while Michael Garibaldi and the command staff were working to replace all the system pass codes to keep Earth from locking them out of their own computers. When all the password changes had been implemented, the computer was shut down and rebooted. Once it came back up Spark's personality was on line, something Garibaldi quickly realized when the computer testily asked him what he wanted.

For the next several hours Sparky kept talking to Garibaldi, greatly annoying the security chief. Finally in frustration Garibaldi shot out one of the computer speakers just so he wouldn't have to listen to Sparky any more. The technicians were able to purge Sparky the Computer from the Babylon 5 computer systems shortly afterwards.

[edit] Arc significance

  • The station command crew has adopted new uniforms, supplied by Delenn, to replace their EarthForce uniforms.
  • Sheridan has explicitly expressed his love for Delenn for the first time.
  • Lennier has confessed to Marcus that he is in love with Delenn, even though he knows that she will never return that love.

[edit] Production details

[edit] Trivia

  • Jerry Doyle had broken his arm during the filming of Severed Dreams. In that episode Michael Garibaldi was shown as having hurt his leg during the fight with the Earth Alliance Marines who had boarded the station. In Ceremonies of Light and Dark Garibaldi is shown wearing a cast on his arm. Garibaldi explained it as having broken his wrist and fractured some other bones in his arm during the fight and that Dr. Franklin had waited until this episode to put his arm in a cast.
  • Harlan Ellison was cast in the speaking role of Sparky the Computer, an obnoxious artificial intelligence program accidentally brought on-line during the course of the episode.

[edit] External link

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