Michael rows that boat ashore, but there's no one singing "Hallelujah" when he gets there. That's because, as space station Babylon 5's commander Capt. Elizabeth Lochley says early in this latest telefilm based on the series, trouble always follows Michael Garibaldi. So naturally, when the station's former security chief comes ashore on that island in space for a business meeting�well, we could say all Hell breaks loose, but that wouldn't be quite right. It's more like all Purgatory�with half-a-billion souls erupting from that prison to end their captors' existence and their own. "Hallelujah"? He's lucky no one's humming him a funeral march.
"There he is, stirring the pot," says Garibaldi's actor alter-ego, Jerry Doyle, with a rueful, can-you-believe-this-guy tone in his voice. "I come into the story to meet up with an archaeologist (Ian McShane), and I pick Babylon 5 as where we'll meet"�in Lochley's office, no less. "And it just so happens that the archaeologist's bringing with him one more nightmare for the station to deal with. Then the Soul Hunter (Martin Sheen, left) shows up to get what the archaeologist has got, and it creates this giant cacophony of nonsense and mayhem. It was a fun shoot," he adds wryly.
The Soul Hunters, a powerful, monk-like order who believe in no afterlife, traverse the universe performing the "favor" of capturing great individuals' souls at the moment of death. Collected as bodiless energy within orbs and placed inside a gallery within an obscure planet, these souls simply continue to be�never having the chance to know either peace or paradise. Even without getting theological (and the B5 characters do debate the existence of souls as opposed to accumulated electrochemical brain energy), it's clear these ethereal captives are just a step away from Hell. Conversely and more lightheartedly, there's a bit of Heaven in a subplot involving a holographic brothel with lifelike, lingerie-clad, tactile-3D holograms. Among them: the beautiful Capt. Lochley (Tracy Scoggins, right) in almost all her glory. As the proprietor (Joel Brooks) explains, she's a favorite fantasy among B5's Johns and Janes.
Doyle himself found a different piece of Heaven on the set. "Working with Martin Sheen," he avows, "is an honor and a pleasure. He's a true professional. And I loved bantering with him at lunch time. He's a lot more liberal than I am, but he tells me, �You're not really a Republican�you have too much compassion.' I say I'm a centrist, he says I should be a Democrat!"
Why not? The 42-year-old actor's been everything else. The son of a housewife and of a police officer who died when Jerry was 11, Doyle earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Dayonta, FL, and began flying and selling corporate jets in New Jersey. He flew from there to Wall Street, where he spent nine years as an investment banker for Drexel Burnham and later Prudential Bache. Or so we believe�because when he moved to L.A. in 1990 to try acting, Doyle put together a r�sum� listing such fake credits as a stint with the Dance Theater of Harlem! "Since no one ever questioned it," he told one interviewer a couple of seasons into Babylon 5, "I leave it on as my tribute to absurdity."
Doyle began acquiring legitimate credits with a bit part in the Moonlighting episode "Cool Hand Dave"�"that one got me my SAG card"�and going on to appearances on Homefront, Reasonable Doubts and daytime's The Bold and the Beautiful. Among his other credits are voiceovers for commercials and (alongside such luminaries as Malcolm McDowell and Michael Dorn) as Captain Simian in the 1996 animated series Captain Simian & The Space Monkeys. Doyle was married to actress Andrea Thompson from 1992-97, and the two have a son.
Aeronautics remains a passion. An avid NASA fan who's been to over a half-dozen space-shuttle take-offs including the recent John Glenn mission, "I've been fortunate enough to fly F-16s out of Edwards Air Force Base," Doyle says. "I'm gonna do a carrier launch and landing on the USS Constellation on December 14th." And how does one get these opportunities, in which the pilots, he says, even let him take over the stick for a bit in the great blue yonder? "They're fans of the show," Doyle answers. "And Bruce [Boxleitner, who plays Interstellar Alliance President John Sheridan on the series] and I talked at the graduation ceremonies there [at Edwards, near Los Angeles], so this is like their thanks."
Doyle and Boxleither (left, in earlier days) likewise appear together in the final episode of Babylon 5, running Wednesday, Nov. 25. That finale takes place 20 years after the events in The River of Souls�which itself takes place after the series' second-to-last episode. And though Garibaldi gets to say his final goodbyes to Sheridan in that wrap-up, Doyle and the rest of the cast had to do it in the penultimate, which was filmed last.
"Shooting that last exit scene on the second-to-last episode was a different kind of experience," Doyle muses. "I've been hanging with these people for 6 years, and having it all wrap up, well�it wasn't hard finding real emotions to say goodbye to Bruce and Mira [Furlan] and Jeff [Conaway] and everyone. The breakfast and lunches together, the camaraderie, the banter�it was a blessing."
And whatever Doyle's future fortunes, he'll always have been blessed with the showboaty Garibaldi. "I think he was his toughest critic, his own worst enemy," Doyle says of his character. "But I think that towards the end, he finally managed to carve out a little bit of happiness for himself."
Babylon 5 characters, names, and all related indicia are trademarks of Time Warner Entertainment Co., LP. �1997 Time Warner Entertainment Co., LP. All Rights Reserved.