Babylon 5: "Spider in the Web"

Babylon 5: "Spider in the Web."[1] Season 2, episode 6 (7 Dec. 1994), #28 running numbering;[2]; also "206" for second season, #6. Michael Beck and Adrienne Barbeau, featured guest stars.

The rogue agency, "Bureau 13," has come up with a way to produce a "cyberzombie": a controllable cyborg produced from a dying individual. Beck plays one programmed as an assassin with a prosthetic hands that kills by electrical discharge. See for a cyborg, mind-control by means of an implant, a deadly prosthetic hand (somewhat Terminator-like), and imagery of schemes within schemes in appropriate mise en scène: Beck's cyborg is a human with an implant controlled via computer by a woman surrounded by computer screens in the midst of a wasteland, while Beck's cyborg is on the space station Babylon 5. Cf. and contrast the locus classicus for such nesting, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (film), plus ALIEN (film), for a killer humanoid robot on a large spacecraft.

Covered briefly in Frank Garcia's "Babylon 5 Episode Guide," Cinefantastique 31.12/Vol. 32 No. 1 (June 2000): 54-55. See Babylon 5 entry for link to locations on line where the relevant Cinefantastique issues are likely to be archived.

(RDE, 24/04/95), RDE, Title, 26Aug19; finishing 16Aug22