Star Trek Veteran Turns Babylon 5 Appearance Into The Show’s Best Recurring Character
For better or worse, the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series found their careers tied to science fiction for decades after the series came to an end. It ended up working out well for Walter Koenig, the original Chekov, who found a late-career resurgence on Babylon 5 as Alfred Bester, the villainous Psi-Cop that became a staple of the series’ five-season run. Chekov was supposed to appeal to young fans, while Bester was a villain from his first scene to his last, and throughout it all, Koening took whatever material he was given and knocked it right out of the park.
Alfred Bester Was Babylon 5’s Greatest Villain
Walter Koenig’s first appearance on Babylon 5 in “Mind War,” the show’s sixth episode, introduced the audience to the dark side of the Psi Corps from the very beginning. Alfred Bester, a representative of the mysterious Psi-Corps, lands on the space station to capture a renegade telepath. Bester doesn’t get along with the station’s commanders, lying to Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) in the first of many, many times the Psi-Cop will obfuscate his true mission no matter who might get hurt along the way. Koening’s performance was praised by fans immediately after the episode aired, and to this day, the 12 episodes he appears in are among the show’s best.
With more in common with Khan than Chekov, Walter Koenig’s Babylon 5 Psi-Cop was driven by a desire to craft a world in which telepaths ruled over the mundanes. He wasn’t subtle about it either, and thankfully, none of the other characters held back when discussing their feelings about Bester, resulting in some of the best lines of the show. Only the perfect match between actor and character could result in a line as corny as this one being delivered in all seriousness: “A pinata, huh? So, you think of me as something bright and cheerful, full of toys and candy for young children? Thank you! That makes me feel much better about our relationship.”
No Redemption Arc Anywhere To Be Found
As the series went on, and Walter Koenig became more comfortable playing Babylon 5’s outright villain, Bester slowly shifted from irritating antagonist to an ally as The Shadow War heated up. That not only didn’t last long but fell apart completely during Season 5 and the Telepath War. Sheridan’s (Bruce Boxleitner) work to try and shelter a telepathic colony onboard the space station was started with the best of intentions, but it nearly shattered the nascent Alliance even before Bester got his hands dirty.
The Psi Corps’ stringent rules and rigid discipline, exemplified by the motto, “The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father,” was embraced wholeheartedly by Besker and his sense of superiority. Even after the Telepath War fallout resulted in the decimation of the Corps, he helped to his beliefs, and in fact, originally, the Season 5 storyline wasn’t going to be the end of the Psi Cop. Walter Koenig was slated to appear again in the Babylon 5 spin-off, Crusade, but the show was canceled before it could happen, which is a shame, as given how far he fell by the end of the show, there was limitless story potential in his rise from the ashes.
As great as Walter Koenig’s performance as Chekov in Star Trek: The Original Series is, if anyone says that his real greatest sci-fi role was Alfred Bester in Babylon 5, it would be hard to argue. We had five seasons of menacing glances, underhanded mind control, and gloriously catty comebacks, including the delightfully dry: “Anatomically impossible, Mr. Garibaldi. But you’re welcome to try.” Not once in any episode was there an attempt to give Bester a redemption arc or to paint him as anything other than an egotistical villain willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals.
Login with Google