The Quality of Mercy

The Quality of Mercy – Babylon 5 season 1

In The Quality of Mercy, a doctor who uses an alien device to cure any ailment meets Dr. Franklin. Londo and Lennier go out for a night on the town. Garibaldi has a convicted murderer, sentenced to be mind wiped, that escapes.

Notes

• Talia Winters really doesn’t want to scan the mind of the murderer prior to his mind wipe. She’s previously had a bad experience with this. And this cold-blooded murder is far worse.
• Garibaldi really wants to throw the murderer out into the void of space. The cold-blooded murderer killed one of his men, after all. But the judge can’t break the law. The worse that can happen to the murderer is the mind wipe.
• Alcohol can give Minbari a psychotic episode!
• Lennier goes out of his way to cover for Lando, for Minbari honor.

Foreshadowing

• The doctor had a history of abusing stimulants, so she could work longer hours and help more people. You’d think Dr. Franklin would keep this in mind …
• The mind wiping ability comes into play in later on, with both Father Theo and the mind-death of a beloved character.

Cast of characters

• Michael O’Hare … Cmdr. Jeffrey Sinclair
• Claudia Christian … Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
• Jerry Doyle … Michael Garibaldi
• Richard Biggs … Dr. Stephen Franklin. We see in this episode Dr. Franklin’s compassion, as he’s operating a free clinic for the poor in Down Below. and even gets Ivanova to help him.
• Andrea Thompson … Talia Winters
• Bill Mumy … Lennier
• Peter Jurasik … Londo Mollari
• June Lockhart (Lost in Space; She Wolf of London) … Dr. Laura Rosen. The disgraced former doctor, using an alien “transference” machine to heal poor individuals in DownBelow.
• Kate McNeil (Monkey Shines) … Janice Rosen
• Mark Rolston … Karl Mueller. The cold-blooded, psychotic, unrepentant murderer.
• Lynn Anderson … Rose
• David L. Crowley (First Blood) … Lou Welch. Garibaldi’s right-hand man.