Just so you know, this artist is doing really long fancomic continuation episodes of the show, they recently finished a version of the Telepath War. It's super good. https://archiveofourown.org/series/1172732

I don't know if it's an American perception per se (as an American who is somewhere between agnostic and atheist) but it certainly is a pop culture perspective. On TV it's either traumatic loss of faith/anger at god, or smug too-logical-for-faith superiority complex, but irl I don't know a single person who fits either of those stereotypes.

This episode was really, really bad. The "romance" was juvenile and annoying (both Gideon/Lochley and Max/Dureena/Trace), the religion stuff was terribly handled (please, please write a narrative about atheism or loss of faith that does not hinge on a woman dying tragically and the main being crushed that God Didn't Stop It. You're 0 for 2 in the past two episodes). The mental illness implications were even worse. Chambers, despite being set up as a lead for the episode, had basically nothing to do.

Basically the only thing I liked about it was Carr giving Lochley shit, and maybe a little bit of Dureena's snark.

Mark, the Doomsday cult believes that the Drakh plague is God's will, and the doctors at the convention are trying to find a cure for the Drakh plague, aka avert God's will. There's plenty of precedent in recent times of religious motivated attacks on science/medical research for similar reasons.

I suspected that Trace was a result of executive meddling the second he wasn't killed in episode 1.

It being Lyta would have been such an emotional punch.

Re episode placement, it kind of feels like we're not getting every adventure. In the last episode they said it's been months since the Drakh plague hit Earth. It bothers me too, I like seeing the build up.

Every episode of Crusade so far, I've found myself going "This is ... really weird" but this is the weirdest one yet, and the one that I've enjoyed the most. I enjoy character study and backstory, and it helps that we (finally) get some on another crew member that isn't Galen or Gideon. I love Telepath stuff, so Matheson's backstory was an added bonus, and it's nice to see stuff that ties back into B5's myth arc, both with that and with Earthforce's coverup of the destruction of Gideon's ship.

Is the Apocalypse Box on the ship right now? That does not seem like a good idea. I assume it's going to come up later in the series and be plot relevant, but dear god what was he thinking accepting it? There are some things you just don't want in your house, and something called an Apocalypse box is one of them. The antique marionettes from the 1930s my grandmother keeps trying to give me are another.

I don't know that Galen was necessarily wrong about the feelings creature's motives/function/whathaveyou, and it would have been nice to explore that further. The only thing that I really didn't like about the episode is Galen's dead girlfriend manpain, and as someone who also doesn't believe in a designed universe it kind of felt like a really stereotypical strawman atheist argument.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for ye are crunchy and go good with ketchup.

I really try not to compare things that aren't Star Trek to Star Trek, but this was basically the plot of that one TNG movie (Insurrection, I think? It's been a really long time since I watched it. It's the one with the Baku and that guy who gets his face stretched off).

Initially, two things annoyed me:
1.) Galen is hanging around on the bridge, going off places. His lurking in the shadows in previous episodes made sense to me, keeping the fact that a Technomage is on their side a secret to have in reserve makes sense if they're worried about Drakh spies. Now it's just because he's an overdramatic theater kid.
2.) Gideon going down to the planet in disguise, and BADLY disguised at that. These people are space Amish, it's not a time travel show or prime directive episode. There was very little point to it.
(Also, the hostage stuff really dates the show, doesn't it?)

That said, once Alwyn showed up things (mostly) improved. I enjoyed his schtick, and his and Galen's interactions. I see the beginnings of a found family theme in their "finding a home" discussions. I wish more of the crew was in this episode, but there's time for that yet. Alwyn's solution to the mining problem was clever and subtle, using a good amount of headology, as Granny Weatherwax would say.

If people back on Earth are looking for natural antivirals, the price of garlic must be going through the roof.

(Also, hi Ta'Lon's actor out of makeup!)

I do like the music, it's just the credits feel super slow.

Speaking of the credits, wow. I really don’t get it. Both the dialogue and the music are so low energy that I just zone out during them. I think they might possibly be the worst credits I’ve ever seen.

100% agree. I was shocked by how bad they were. They were trying to go for something like the B5 season 5 credits, but it just absolutely flopped. (Which is funny, because I did like the scene at the end that the lines were taken from.)