Space Cases About The Show

Behind The Scenes

The Crew

Episode Details

Episode Guide

Episode Snapshots

Links

Lyrics

News Archives

Newsletters

Peter David

Site Info
and Awards

Website Contacts

Hosted by
Robert Rhodes
at Aloha Daze


Who Goes
Where?

Season 1, Episode 2

Episode Details

Plot Summary | Ongoing Story and Character Developments
Unanswered Questions | Memorable Lines | Glitches
Trivia, Inside Jokes and References | NotePAD

Plot Summary

Radu finds a teddy bear floating in space and retrieves it for Rosie, as a way of thanking her for being so nice to him. Within moments after retrieving the bear, Radu begins to shiver. He hallucinates that Harlan has turned into a monster, but he says nothing about it to Harlan, who already thinks Andromedans are crazy.

Radu's hallucinations become worse. He sees things attacking him from his food tube, and sees both Goddard and Harlan as monsters. Again, he keeps this to himself, because he is suffering from paranoid delusions. Thelma notes that Radu's temperature is low, and his barometric pressure is dropping. Radu initially resists when they tell him to get some rest, but then he realizes that it's all "a plot" and he must go along with it for now.

Meanwhile, Catalina is celebrating the Saturnian Rejoicing Festival, the most exhausting holiday in the universe, which requires her to dance around wearing increasingly elaborate costumes. She tries to get out of celebrating the holiday by faking a sprained ankle, but it's only pulled, and Rosie cures it using her heat powers.

Eventually, Radu's paranoid delusions become so intense that he attacks Thelma, ripping her arm off and trashing the bunkroom. He also tries to attack Catalina, but she chases him off with a sonic blast.

Goddard realizes that something is very wrong with Radu, a great danger because (as we learn for the first time) Andromedans have incredible strength and endurance. Goddard warns the crew, but it's too late for Harlan, who is in the ComPost with Radu. After a brief struggle, Radu overpowers Harlan and takes him to the airlock, planning to blow him out into space.

Rosie realizes that Radu's condition is a result of his contact with the bear. She finds out from Thelma that an alien race has been known to leave booby-trap viruses in this part of space, and that these viruses are designed to survive in the cold. She decides that she can help Radu by using her Mercurian heat powers to kill the virus.

Radu, lost in his paranoia, does not trust Rosie, but she struggles with him and succeeds in curing him. But Harlan is still trapped in the airlock, and the outer door has opened. Radu forces open the inner door and saves Harlan.

Radu is now recovering, but Harlan still doesn't trust him entirely, and resents the fact that everybody is being so nice to a person who nearly killed him.

The episode ends with the crew celebrating the Saturnian rejoicing festival with Catalina: Radu dancing with Cat, Harlan dancing with Rosie, Goddard dancing with Davenport, Thelma dancing with the Gizbot, and Bova rolling his eyes and going off on his own.

Ongoing Story and Character Developments

  • Rosie is fond of stuffed animals, and has several that she found in the Christa's cargo bay.
  • Rosie is the only person who is nice to Radu.
  • Saturnians celebrate a week-long rejoicing festival, which they celebrate by dancing and ringing bells.
  • Harlan trusts Radu so little that he cannot even unquestioningly accept the navigational coordinates that Radu gives him.
  • Andromedans have an internal atmosphere, and vent snow and steam when that atmosphere is out of kilter. We also hear what sounds like thunder when Radu's "cold front" meets Rosie's "warm front."
  • 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) is a significantly low temperature for Andromedans. (PAD states that this was not a mistake; he says that they did not intend the temperature to be 35 degrees Fahrenheit).
  • Rosie is interested in medicine
  • Bova is interested in science.
  • Heat control is a natural talent for Mercurians
  • "Grozit" is a Saturnian expletive (or at least, it is an expletive that Catalina uses commonly).
  • Andromedans were at war with humans fairly recently, and Goddard fought in that war.
  • Andromedans have incredible strength and endurance.
  • Catalina can emit a piercing sonic scream (although the sonic scream is not explained until A Day in the Life).
  • Harlan is skilled at hand-to-hand combat (he holds his own against Radu until he stops to call for help).
  • In spite of their differences, there is some chemistry between Goddard and Davenport that is obvious when they dance.
  • We see the Gizbot for the first time, although it is not given a name yet.

Memorable Lines

Harlan (softly): Andromedans! They're all crazy!
Radu (from down the hall): I heard that!
Harlan (even softer): How could you not with those ears?
Radu (from farther down the hall): I heard that too!

Harlan: You won't admit I'm good at anything!
Thelma: Oh, that's not true, Harlan. I've heard Ms. Davenport say you are good at many things. Good at goofing off. Good at making excuses. Good for nothing.

Goddard: Radu's dependable. He's level-headed. He's --
(Radu comes out of jump tubes and screams at the sight of them)

Thelma: His temperature is 35 degrees Celsius. Low, even for Andromedans. His barometric pressure is dropping. I think he's going to snow.
Goddard: That's ridiculous.
Radu: (sneezes, and snow blows out of his ears).

Radu: I've got to do something!
(runs smack into closed door)
Bova: Interesting choice.

Goddard: Tell us what happened, from the beginning.
Thelma: All right. First, the universe was void and without form. Then, there was a big bang.
Davenport: This could take a while.

Thelma: And the last thing I remember is... the floor coming at me very quickly!

Thelma: Forcing open the inner air lock door while the outer door is open is a safety hazard. Please, don't do it again. Thank you.

Glitches

  • Jewel is inconsistent in her pronunciation of "ZaBaGaBe!" Sometimes she pronounces it "Zuh BAH guh bee," other times "Zuh BAG uh bee." You can hear her change pronunciations in the middle of the scene where she dances through the room where Bova, Rosie and Davenport are looking at books.
  • The Radu stunt double who carries Harlan down the hall is very noticeably larger and heavier than Kristian Ayre. (See picture at right.)
  • At the end of the episode, we see Rosie bandaging Radu's hands, obviously because of the burns she must have inflicted while curing him of the virus. But she is applying the bandages over Radu's gloves.

Trivia, Inside Jokes and References

  • The Infamous Bear Story: The teddy bear that Radu finds in space is the very same one that was used in a Babylon 5 episode that PAD wrote, and is part of a running gag between Peter David (PAD) and Babylon 5 creator, writer, and executive producer Joe Michael Straczynski (JMS). Apparently, PAD's wife gave the bear to JMS. JMS doesn't like "cute" things, so he stuck it in PAD's B5 episode "There All The Honor Lies" and had Sheridan toss it out an airlock. Peter took revenge in defense of his wife's honor. When Radu brings in the bear, Rosie says, "What kind of dope would toss a perfectly good Earth bear into space?" Later, we find out that the bear was left by an evil race called the Straczyn (a reference to JMS). Apparently, JMS has sworn vengeance.
  • Za Ba Ga Be (Catalina's chant) is the name of an album by series creator and writer Bill Mumy. It was also the chant he used in the B5 episode "Eyes".
  • Bova is reading a book on what to say when making first contact. The first suggestion is "Fascinating," which was a catch-phrase for Mr. Spock on Classic Trek. Rahi Azizi even says the line with a bit of a Spockian flair.
  • Thelma mentions a game called Minbar chess, a reference to Mumy's role as a Minbari on B5.
  • Thelma's line "first, the universe was void and without form" is a paraphrase of Genesis 1:2.
  • I'm not sure if this counts (I'm not even sure I'm remembering it right), but I remember hearing about a story idea that David Gerrold had submitted to Trek at the same time he submitted Trouble with Tribbles, which involved the crew turning against Kirk, and I seem to recall that alien teddy bears were involved. If I'm remembering this correctly, this can't have gone unnoticed, because Gerrold has an Executive Story Consultant credit on SC's first season.
  • The frost makeup was extremely uncomfortable for Kristian, and took close to 3 hours to apply (approximately twice his normal routine). It was difficult to eat with the makeup on. The makeup was also rather unpleasant to look at; Peter David dubbed Kristian "snot boy" during the filming of this episode and Kristian refers to the frost as "snot-cicles." Kristian wanted to create a shot for the blooper reel in which, in frost makeup and shivering, he looks into the camera and says, "Letterman's right; this Ed Sullivan theater is freezing!" [Peter David / ZaBaGaBe]
  • The Radu wig used in this episode was irreparably damaged by the makeup used to frost it. It is one of five different wigs used during the course of the series. [ZaBaGaBe]

Unanswered Questions

  1. What is the Eye of the Future?
  2. Why were the Andromedans at war with Earth? (Answered in Episode #4, Spung at Heart: The Andromedans were forced to fight the war by the Spung, who had enslaved their entire race.)
  3. Radu tells Rosie that the bear is "just a toy... like the others you found in the cargo hold." Where did these other toys... which we assume are assorted stuffed animals.... come from? It seems unlikely that an alien race would just happen to have stuffed animals in their ship and that Rosie, a stuffed animal lover, just happens to have found them. [7/10/97 - Robert Rhodes]
  4. Davenport brings out some books that she found in the cargo hold which are written "in languages we can understand." Once again, I have to ask where this stuff from the cargo hold came from. These books look quite old... and based on the reaction of Rosie, books seem to be a very rare item. If Rosie is about thirteen Earth years old, it seems likely that she would have seen a book by now if they were still being used. [7/10/97 - Robert Rhodes]
  5. When everyone is dancing (except Bova) at the end of the episode, the lights on the Command Post start pulsating in rhythm with everyone's dancing... does this imply that the Christa was, in fact, also "dancing" with the crew? [7/10/97 - Robert Rhodes]
  6. Most holidays (on Earth at least) are related to a historical, agricultural or astronomical event. Is the Saturnian Rejoicing Festival related to some event, such as the colonization of Saturn? And if so, what are the details of that event? [7/11/97 - Tracey Rich / Robert Rhodes]

NotePAD
(Notes from co-creator Peter A. David)

An interesting script in that compromises were reached between ourselves and Nickelodeon wherein everyone was happy.

Originally the climax of the script was set on the command post. Radu, fully within thrall of the alien virus, was convinced that everyone on the ship had turned into pod creatures, and had set the ship on a suicidal collision course with an asteroid. After the fight with Harlan, in which he'd knocked Harlan cold, he was keeping the ship on its collision course when Rosie came up to the compost and cured him using the "heat burnout" method she used in the aired episode. Radu then pulled the vessel out of its suicidal rendezvous at the last second. End of show. We'd structured it that way since it seemed the least costly, least financially draining way to put the ship in jeopardy and have Radu save the day.

Nick wanted more. They wanted bigger. Nick's feeling was that Radu, who had clobbered Harlan directly, should somehow save Harlan directly. Seeing it as a challenge, Bill and I wrote the airlock rescue sequence and threw the challenge right back: Okay, we wrote it. Now we need the budget to build it. Nick rose to the challenge and forked up the money to construct the airlock iris door and the connector, not to mention rent the wind machine.

The actual airlock connector is not as long as it looks. It was designed on what's called a "forced perspective" basis so that the eye is tricked into thinking it's longer than it is. To achieve the Harlan-floating effect, Walter lay on a teeterboard built into the side of the connector.

The title is derived from the classic short story, "Who Goes There?" about a disguised alien masscring everyone in a polar station, which was made and remade into the movie "The Thing." Kristian Ayre (whom I dubbed "Snot Boy" when he had all the freezing make-up on him, since that's what he looked like when not shivering) wanted to shoot an outtake where he's shivering into camera, stammering, "Boy, Letterman's right, the Ed Sullivan Theater is freezing," but we never got around to it, which is a shame. The bear used in the script is the same one blown out into space in the Babylon 5 episode, "There All the Honor Lies," written by Yours Truly. Originally we had him in the baseball jacket and cap; Nickelodeon nixed this, decreeing it too silly looking.

A continuity error occurred when Bova discovers the wrecked teamroom and mangled Thelma. Shot on two different days, Bova was filmed wearing his vest in the corridor and vestless in the team room when the door opened. An honest mistake by script coordinator Marie Jose, who should have caught it, it necessitated a reshoot a week later. The crew ribbed her about it mercilessly: The clapboard for that shot had "A Marie Jose Production" written on masking tape, and Rahi looked into camera at the end of the shot and called, "This one's for you, Marie!"

PAD


Episode Details provided by Tracey Rich.
This page was last updated on July 29, 1997.