By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 13 seconds ago

Sabotage, blackmail, extortion, it’s all another day at the office for the political representatives onboard Babylon 5. The intergalactic space station is supposed to be a neutral zone for trade, commerce, politics, negotiations, and all manner of diplomatic activity, but early on during Babylon 5’s run, viewers learned how dirty politics can get in the 23rd century.

“Born to the Purple,” the third episode of Season 1, is the first of many episodes to focus on the Centaurian Ambassador, Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik), this time, he’s fallen for the classic spy move: the honeypot. 

Women Were Always Londo’s Greatest Weakness

It’s a classic move in real-world espionage that exploits sexual relationships for the purposes of blackmail and information gathering. In “Born to the Purple” Londo finds himself smitten by a gorgeous Centauri dancer, Adira Tyree (Fabiana Uderno), to the point that he’s abandoned diplomatic duties, including the crafting of a peace treaty with the Narn and his future best friend forever, G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas).

That’s an unintended side effect of her attention. The plan hatched by Adira’s owner Trakis (Clive Revill, the original voice of Star Wars Emperor Palpatine) is to steal the Purple Files and blackmail the Centauri into doing everything he wants. 

The Purple Files contain information on the highest ranks of the Centauri government, including secrets that very powerful, very important individuals don’t want to be made public. Londo is, allegedly, an important Centauran, and also an easy mark.

Adira manages to scan his brain while he’s sleeping off the drugs she slipped him, gets the information, and then has a change of heart and betrays Trakis. Trakis responds by convincing Londo she’s really a Narn agent and uses the lovestruck fool to help track down where she’s hiding. 

While Londo and Sinclair infiltrate the Dark Star club, G’Kar and Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson) meet with Tarkis to verify that he has the Purple Files. Talia uses the old psi-corp trick of saying, “don’t think of what I’m about to tell you,” and gets the location of where he kept Adria. The ability to read minds feels like a cheat code in a world of political espionage. 

Adira is eventually recovered, and her ownership papers are taken from Trakis, allowing her to stay, as a free woman, with Londo onboard Babylon 5. She breaks his heart when she decides to go to a Centauri planet instead. One day, she’ll return for Londo. 

The Honeypot Has Been Used Throughout History

“Born to the Purple” is the first hint at the incredible chemistry between Londo and G’Kar when they give the exact same advice to their subordinates at the negotiating table: “Don’t give away the home world.”

It’s a glimpse into the depths that hide beneath Londo’s foppish appearance and his unique view on the world of love. As a standalone episode, there’s not a lot connecting it to the rest of Babylon 5 outside of the fantastic character moments that would eventually define the series. Not every episode has to push the mythology arc forward, something that creator J. Michael Straczynski was well aware of, and the episode’s writer, Larry Ditillio, helped lay the foundation for the revelations of later seasons. 

Honeypots like Adria were used in actual, real-world espionage and popularized by Russia during the Cold War. Watch The Americans, and you’ll quickly realize most of their spy work involved pretending to be in relationships with the target.

An argument could be made that poor Anne Boleyn from The Tudors is an early historical example. If anyone on board Babylon 5 would fall head over heels for the honeypot, it would be Londo, and if anyone could eventually convince a honeypot to come back to him, it’s also Londo.                  

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 22 seconds ago

If you know much about Star Trek: Voyager, then you know that nobody on the cast complained quite as much as Garrett Wang. The Ensign Kim actor sometimes had very righteous gripes, like when he revealed how the writers allegedly fat-shamed him and Robert Duncan McNeil by writing their recent weight gain into a script. Sometimes, his complaints are shocking, like his unsubstantiated claim that he was told to underact by Rick Berman in order to make the show’s aliens seem more realistic.

In fact, when he repeated a version of that complaint to a TV Guide reporter, who dutifully reported that a Star Trek actor was badmouthing his own TV show. To this day, Wang is convinced that this snafu is why he never got a chance to direct. Fortunately for the actor, not all of his complaints fizzled out. If we had never complained about the writing for his character being boring, then rockstar writer Brannon Braga would never have created “Non-Sequitur,” arguably one of the best episodes to ever feature Ensign Kim.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease

What is “Non-Sequitur” about? In this tale, Ensign Kim awakens in San Francisco to discover that he never joined the Voyager crew and, thus, never got stranded in the Delta Quadrant. He still has his memories from his time aboard ship, but it’s easy enough to forget all of that in the arms of his hot girlfriend. But his absence from Voyager also meant that Tom Paris lost his spot on the ship, becoming a drunken loser with no purpose. In the ultimate “bros before hoes” moment, Kim teams up with Paris to restore the timeline, ensuring that their bromance will continue on the other side of the galaxy.

“Non-Sequitur” is a very solid Star Trek: Voyager story, especially if (like me) you’re a big fan of both Harry Kim and Tom Paris. As it turns out, though, this episode would never have been written if Garrett Wang hadn’t complained to writer and producer Brannon Braga. As the actor confessed to The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, this episode “was the result of me going into the production office and saying….When is Harry gonna get the girl? When is he gonna have the action?” Braga responded, “Don’t worry about it,” and went on to create “Non-Sequitur.”

Too Cool For Pool

Generally speaking, Wang was quite happy with the finished result because it delivered everything he wanted. The altered timeline of “Non-Sequitur” gave Ensign Kim a cute girlfriend, and it let him kick a little butt once he decided to return reality to the way things were before. He also gets to become a full-on action hero, stealing a runabout, escaping Starfleet pursuit, and even beaming out into the vacuum of space, all in a desperate bid to restore the timeline. 

However, this wouldn’t be a Garrett Wang story if there wasn’t one more complaint. According to the actor, he asked Brannon Braga to intersperse all the action and romance “throughout that year,” hoping Kim would become a more dynamic character throughout Season 2. Instead, Braga “put it all in one episode.” Fortunately, “Non-Sequitur” served as a fun showcase for Wang’s abilities as an actor, one that almost (but not quite) made up for what he really wanted: a promotion for his eternally underused, eternally underacting ensign.

TL;DR: Get a free iPhone 17e when signing up for a T-Mobile plan with no trade-in required. Alternatively, get the iPhone 17 for free from T-Mobile when signing up for an Experience More plan and trading in an eligible device.

Last month was absolutely huge for Apple. We got new iPhones, MacBooks, and iPads, but what now? Are we just expected to sit around and wait for the next batch of new products? No, we’re supposed to score the best deals on this fresh lineup.

For those interested in investing in the new iPhone 17, we recommend checking out T-Mobile. The popular carrier is offering another “free iPhone” deal this weekend.

You can switch to almost any T-Mobile plan and get a free iPhone 17e with no trade in required. Alternatively, you can score the iPhone 17 for free when signing on for 24 months of an Experience Beyond plan and trading in an eligible phone. T-Mobile will charge taxes on these free deals and a $35 device connection fee.

There are always some strings attached to these sort of deals, and we should note that the Experience More plan is designed for power users who want 4K streaming, massive hotspot data, and the best international roaming. It therefore comes with a higher monthly bill than more limited plans. The Experience More plan does include perks like Apple TV+ and Netflix, which helps offset some of that cost.

If you’re still rocking an iPhone 12 or 13, you’re missing out on some genuinely game-changing features. The iPhone 17 is the first base model built specifically to handle Apple’s most advanced AI features. Mashable’s Stan Schroeder said it’s an “excellent phone that matches the iPhone Pro models in many ways that matter.”

Score an iPhone 17 for free this weekend with T-Mobile.