Tag: bab5

In Memory of Babylon 5

For the past week or so I’ve begun re-watching the groundbreaking scifi TV show, Babylon 5 from episode one. A few years back I began watching the series when it was available on Netflix streaming and I managed to get up to season 3 when it was unceremoniously dropped before I could finish. My friend Corey has let me borrow his entire Bab 5 DVD collection and this time I’m going to make it all the way through to the end.

Re-watching the series I’ve begun to remember just how strong the characters and story arc was, especially for 90’s scifi television. My first love will always be Deep Space Nine, but I do understand the fan’s love of Babylon 5, its mythos and definitive beginning, middle and end storytelling structure. It’s also easy to see the appeal of the series thanks to the chemistry between the actors and actresses who played their respective parts to a tee. I’m particularly fond of Claudia Christian as Ivanova and Andreas Katsulas as G’Kar. Sadly Katsulas passed away in 2006, as did the series’ original lead Michael O’Hare in 2012 at the age of 60. In fact, many of the original cast of Babylon 5 is no longer with us which is a sad footnote in Babylon 5’s history.

I recently came across a wonderful memorial video that series’ creator Straczynski put together for the 2013 Phoenix Comicon Convention. I’ll admit it made me quite misty and I just wanted to share. If you love Babylon 5 and the people who helped bring it to life, this short video is a great way to remember them. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the entire series unfold from start to finish and finally learning what becomes of Sheridan, G’Kar, Londo and the rest. Hopefully with the recent announcement of a possible big-screen re-boot of Babylon 5 coming our way, new fans will discover this amazing scifi universe and its characters.

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Discovering Babylon 5

SPOILER WARNING: This post contains mild spoilers for the first season of Babylon 5. If you’ve not watched the series yet, and intend to do so some day, you might want to skip this post.

When Babylon 5 originally premiered in January of 1994, I was buried in massive amounts of grad work and didn’t have time to follow the newly announced series on the air. Being the huge, protective Star Trek fan I was, I also considered Babylon 5 to be somewhat of an “also ran” at the time. Now, thanks to my Netflix enabled Apple TV, I decided to see what I was missing and dive head first into the landmark sci-fi TV series. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what I’ve found.

I will say I’m still green when it comes to Babylon 5. I’m getting ready to wrap up watching the first season so please don’t post spoilers in the comments section. What I’ve discovered so far is a science fiction series which was crafted with love by its creator, J. Michael Straczynski. Although the production levels would be considered low budget by today’s standards, the writing of the characters and the drama is top notch. Like any fledgeling series, Babylon 5 took more than a few episodes to find its space legs. The first episode I really enjoyed was ‘Born to the Purple‘ featuring the Centauri diplomat Londo as played by the talented Peter Jurasik. One aspect that makes the show so appealing is the dialog between characters. Interactions often seem more “real” than they ever did on Star Trek: The Next Generation and there’s a intentional lack of the so-called “technobabble” that often served as a dramatic crutch on Star Trek.

Indeed, in interview after interview, J. Michael Straczynski stated he wanted to do things differently than Roddenberry and Berman did on Trek. Externally, the premise of the show may seem very Trek-like, but scratch more than the surface and the similarities end. Babylon 5 centers around an immense space station build by the Earth Defense Force to serve as a sort of deep-space United Nations to keep the peace between the major races of the galaxy. The story follows the crew and inhabitants of the station as they jockey for position in their day-to-day dealings with each other and the cosmos. The series is unique because it was planned as a single, massive five-year story arc that had a definite beginning, middle and end.

I’ve enjoyed the way Babylon 5 treats certain topics, among them religion. While religion played an important part of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, there it served as the center of faith for the Bajoran race, not of humans. Gene Roddenberry had specifically said that by Star Trek’s time, mankind had “grown out” belief in God. In Babylon 5, characters embrace religion, and in an ironic nod to Gene’s vision, even celebrate its infinite diversity on the planet Earth. One of the first season’s best episodes, “TKO” finds the station’s second in command, Susan Ivanova, dealing with the death of her father and embracing her Jewish heritage. The scenes with Ivanova holding shiva for her papa are touching and bring a sense of humanity to the technologically complex, and sometimes cold universe of Babylon 5.

Other parts of the show I’m enjoying often involve details. A scene between Commander Sinclair and Security Chief Garibaldi, part of which is held in a public men’s room. It’s refreshing because something like this NEVER happened on Star Trek. While I couldn’t possibly imagine Worf and Riker discussing the day’s events while standing at a urinal, it seemed like a perfectly normal scene on Babylon 5. Another funny exchange comes in the form of a funny practical joke Garibaldi and Sinclair play on Ivanova over breakfast one morning. Moments like this are rare in the often overly dramatic universes shows like Babylon 5 inhabit, which is why they’re so welcome by fans like myself.

Perhaps the best part of discovering Babylon 5 is knowing that I’m just at the outset of the series. Over the years, I’ve heard many good things about the show and how it became “must see TV” for an entire generation of scifi fans. I’m gratified to finally have a chance to witness the friendly jibes between Londo and G’kar, to slowly discover the mysteries of the Vorlons and to learn more about the ruthless and enigmatic Psi Corps. Watching the show for the first time is like discovering an entire universe of rich fables all waiting to be unwrapped. For a geek like myself, its a guilty pleasure and one that I highly recommend. Some time ago I wrote a post highlighting my top 10 favorite science fiction shows ever. At the time I had not seen Babylon 5, and so I had no reason to include it on my list. If the series continues to improve as so many on Twitter have told me it does, I may just have to go back and make amends.