I can't promise I'll say much here you haven't read a thousand times before on a thousand other websites, or heard on a thousand podcasts. Maybe you've even watched a thousand YouTube videos. But I do have one unique fact for you that no one anywhere has ever mentioned before: each season of Babylon 5 features slightly longer episode titles on average than the previous one, and by season five the titles are, on average, 42% longer than season one titles. I hope this extremely trivial trivia brings joy into your day.
But did longer episode titles mean better episodes? Was the miraculous fifth season renewal a good thing overall? Did Babylon 5 actually stick the landing? I'll tell you what I think and then you can tell me what you think in the comments afterwards.
There will be SPOILERS here for pretty much all of Babylon 5, aside from the spin-offs and Lost Tales. That's The Gathering all the way to Sleeping in Light.
Every season of Babylon 5 got its title from one of its episodes,
and the fifth season is named after The Wheel of Fire. I've watched the special features on my DVD so I know exactly why that
is.
In mythology the term 'wheel of fire' refers to the punishment received by Ixion when he got caught lusting after Zeus' wife. He was strapped to a literal spinning fiery wheel for eternity. In literature the term is applied to a character (often the protagonist) whose choice or choices set him on a path to the bad ending. In this case the title's mainly referring to Londo Mollari, who wanted to be more than he saw in the mirror, allied himself with monsters promising power, and finally paid a horrible price.
He's not the only character who faces their fate however; the season's all about consequences and conclusions, and some of them are much happier than others. There's still plenty going on, but the heroes have been reduced to playing a more passive role in events, like it's season 2 all over again. It's a bit of a shift from the previous year, where the heroes were at their most determined and proactive, bringing the fight to the enemy and getting things done. The Shadow War, Emperor Cartagia, the occupation of Narn, the Minbari Civil War, Sheridan's capture, President Clark... everything was finally being sorted out!
In mythology the term 'wheel of fire' refers to the punishment received by Ixion when he got caught lusting after Zeus' wife. He was strapped to a literal spinning fiery wheel for eternity. In literature the term is applied to a character (often the protagonist) whose choice or choices set him on a path to the bad ending. In this case the title's mainly referring to Londo Mollari, who wanted to be more than he saw in the mirror, allied himself with monsters promising power, and finally paid a horrible price.
He's not the only character who faces their fate however; the season's all about consequences and conclusions, and some of them are much happier than others. There's still plenty going on, but the heroes have been reduced to playing a more passive role in events, like it's season 2 all over again. It's a bit of a shift from the previous year, where the heroes were at their most determined and proactive, bringing the fight to the enemy and getting things done. The Shadow War, Emperor Cartagia, the occupation of Narn, the Minbari Civil War, Sheridan's capture, President Clark... everything was finally being sorted out!
Season 5 initially comes across as a brighter series, with all the wars won
and the galaxy at peace. We've reached the light at the end of the tunnel and
got a triumphant new theme tune to prove it! But the two major arcs this year
both end in a huge defeat and tragedy. The main characters' big choices and
epic victories have already happened so it's a new character, Byron, that
dominates the first half of the season, and things do not go well for him. His
telepath colony arc ends with blackmail, a siege, a hostage situation, and a
group suicide! The other big arc, about mysterious attacks on shipping, ends
with the Drakh getting away with their plan, taking Centauri Prime out of the
Alliance and enslaving Londo. The season actually leaves the galaxy in a worse
place than it was when it started, and the last chapter of this epic five year
saga turns out to be about the heroes packing their bags and moving on!
It's nice to see everyone go their separate ways to hopefully happier situations for the most part, but it's feels strange to end with so many emotional farewells right after the season's main story arc ended with the villains winning. Okay the heroes have technically won by keeping the Interstellar Alliance together during its first year, but that never seemed to be in doubt, so it's like they're saying "Well we really screwed everything up this year didn't we? Okay bye everyone!" If the moral of season 4 was 'Faith manages', the moral of this season is "Fighting a war is easy. Destroying is easy. Building a new world out of what's left of the old, that is what's hard."
Another thing that's strange is how much setup there is in a season that's supposed to be bringing plot lines to a resolution.
It's nice to see everyone go their separate ways to hopefully happier situations for the most part, but it's feels strange to end with so many emotional farewells right after the season's main story arc ended with the villains winning. Okay the heroes have technically won by keeping the Interstellar Alliance together during its first year, but that never seemed to be in doubt, so it's like they're saying "Well we really screwed everything up this year didn't we? Okay bye everyone!" If the moral of season 4 was 'Faith manages', the moral of this season is "Fighting a war is easy. Destroying is easy. Building a new world out of what's left of the old, that is what's hard."
Another thing that's strange is how much setup there is in a season that's supposed to be bringing plot lines to a resolution.
The Psi Corps gets a lot of attention this year, with Bester showing up
several times, and it seems that everything's leading up to the telepath war
that everyone knows is coming. But then Lyta says she'll meet up with
Garibaldi to discuss the next step in two years, so nothing gets
resolved! Meanwhile Londo gives Sheridan an urn containing a secret keeper
parasite that will enslave his son in 16 years. So that's never wrapped
up either.
It made me feel like I was back in season 1 or 2, except this time there wasn't going to be another season 4 to pay everything off. Somehow the miraculous extra year they didn't think they'd get left the series with more loose ends than there would've been without it! J. Michael Straczynski deliberately left many threads untied, partly to say 'this is just a chapter in a larger story, life goes on, the war is never completely won' and partly because he had ambitions to make a theatrical movie like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files did. Unfortunately all the attempts to continue the story got cancelled, so the Babylon 5 saga was left feeling unfinished.
That's not the only thing that bothered me about this season though...
THE BAD
It made me feel like I was back in season 1 or 2, except this time there wasn't going to be another season 4 to pay everything off. Somehow the miraculous extra year they didn't think they'd get left the series with more loose ends than there would've been without it! J. Michael Straczynski deliberately left many threads untied, partly to say 'this is just a chapter in a larger story, life goes on, the war is never completely won' and partly because he had ambitions to make a theatrical movie like Star Trek: The Next Generation and The X-Files did. Unfortunately all the attempts to continue the story got cancelled, so the Babylon 5 saga was left feeling unfinished.
That's not the only thing that bothered me about this season though...
THE BAD
Obviously the first thing I have to mention is Byron and his telepaths. I get
the feeling that he was supposed be a charismatic messianic leader who rode
the line between sympathetic pacifist and unnerving cult leader so that we
could understand Zack's dislike of him and Lyta's love for him at the same
time, but man the guy is punchable. He's also pretentious, patronising, and so
perpetually poetic that he has to repeat his lessons in plain language before
people can even parse them.
But the Byron plot is just a symptom of a series of issues that really hit the first half of the season hard. For one thing writer jms was sure the series was getting cancelled and moved the epic resolution of the Earth Civil War and the creation of the Interstellar Alliance into season 4. This helped give season 4 a breakneck pace, but left season 5 a bit empty. The problem was made worse by a cleaner at a hotel throwing out/stealing his story notes, and it definitely didn't help that it was originally supposed to be an Ivanova arc.
I didn't quite realise how important an ingredient Claudia Christian was to Babylon 5's recipe until she left the series due to a tragic combination of a misunderstanding and a deadline. I missed Susan Ivanova's energy in a way that I didn't when Jeffery Sinclair left, and I was missing Marcus Cole's humour as well. In fact even the characters who stayed felt a little bit absent somehow, and not just because budget cuts meant they couldn't bring them back for as many episodes. The season suffers from the characters being moved to less interesting roles where they make less satisfying decisions to try to solve more complicated problems. Sheridan's been taken out of the action hero general role where he thrived and has completed his evolution into a flawed politician. Another issue is that we'd learned that the Drakh were up to something on Centauri Prime by episode 7... in the previous season, but the heroes never figure it out. We've got more information than they do during their whole investigation and that's kind of frustrating.
And Captain Lochley is only in like 10 stories! This is a bit of an problem because a: she's a good character and deserved more screen time, and b: that means over half the episodes of this season of Babylon 5 didn't require the captain of Babylon 5 in any way. Most episodes didn't require anyone leaving the station either, which is a bit of shift after the epic scope of season 4. It makes the season feel very small and cheap for the first half. And it was cheaper, with the budget stretched to the point where they could only afford six days of filming per episode instead of seven.
Though there were some things about season 5 that worked out pretty well...
THE GOOD
But the Byron plot is just a symptom of a series of issues that really hit the first half of the season hard. For one thing writer jms was sure the series was getting cancelled and moved the epic resolution of the Earth Civil War and the creation of the Interstellar Alliance into season 4. This helped give season 4 a breakneck pace, but left season 5 a bit empty. The problem was made worse by a cleaner at a hotel throwing out/stealing his story notes, and it definitely didn't help that it was originally supposed to be an Ivanova arc.
I didn't quite realise how important an ingredient Claudia Christian was to Babylon 5's recipe until she left the series due to a tragic combination of a misunderstanding and a deadline. I missed Susan Ivanova's energy in a way that I didn't when Jeffery Sinclair left, and I was missing Marcus Cole's humour as well. In fact even the characters who stayed felt a little bit absent somehow, and not just because budget cuts meant they couldn't bring them back for as many episodes. The season suffers from the characters being moved to less interesting roles where they make less satisfying decisions to try to solve more complicated problems. Sheridan's been taken out of the action hero general role where he thrived and has completed his evolution into a flawed politician. Another issue is that we'd learned that the Drakh were up to something on Centauri Prime by episode 7... in the previous season, but the heroes never figure it out. We've got more information than they do during their whole investigation and that's kind of frustrating.
And Captain Lochley is only in like 10 stories! This is a bit of an problem because a: she's a good character and deserved more screen time, and b: that means over half the episodes of this season of Babylon 5 didn't require the captain of Babylon 5 in any way. Most episodes didn't require anyone leaving the station either, which is a bit of shift after the epic scope of season 4. It makes the season feel very small and cheap for the first half. And it was cheaper, with the budget stretched to the point where they could only afford six days of filming per episode instead of seven.
Though there were some things about season 5 that worked out pretty well...
THE GOOD
Babylon 5 got all five seasons in the end! This meant that they could
finally wrap up plotlines like the telepath war and the keepers. They didn't,
but they could've!
One thing that did get a proper resolution is Londo Mollari's ascension to the position of puppet emperor of the Centauri Republic and this one plotline's enough to justify the whole season on its own. Sure G'Kar becoming Londo's bodyguard is a bit contrived, as is G'Kar keeping Londo in the dark about their investigation. But for the most part the two characters completing their journey from bitter enemies to closest of friends is fantastic, as is the tragic ending (which we already know from War Without End will eventually lead to the death of both of them). Londo made some bad choices in season 2 and he pays the price for them here with 20 years of enslavement by a mind-control parasite while servants of the Shadows take over his beloved planet. I've forgotten a lot about the series, but his fate has stuck with me all these years. It's the kind of ending you want to tell your friends about, to convince them that they need to give Babylon 5 a chance... but ruining it would be bad, so I've tried not to.
Also good was how Garibaldi's alcoholism finally came into play in a big way. Sure it got a bit repetitive because there's only so many ways you can show a guy passed out next to an empty bottle (and it's a bit of a retread of Franklin's stim addiction in season 3), but the season gave the subject the time it deserved, instead of having him develop a drinking problem and then get cured the day after. Plus the arc even led to Lochley getting a good scene! I did miss Proper Garibaldi though, who despite getting his brain back was replaced with Cranky Garibaldi for the first half and Lying Drunk Garibaldi for the second. It was only at the very end that we got the funny, smart, loveable Looney Tunes fan back.
The season also spent a bit of time experimenting with techniques to put the characters on an alien planet, giving us two trips to the streets of the Drazi homeworld! The CGI-augmented sets are still not quite at the level of what the Star Wars series are capable of these days, but then neither are the Star Wars shows at times. It's difficult enough to get this stuff right with Disney money in 2022, so they did pretty well with no money back in 1998.
One thing that did get a proper resolution is Londo Mollari's ascension to the position of puppet emperor of the Centauri Republic and this one plotline's enough to justify the whole season on its own. Sure G'Kar becoming Londo's bodyguard is a bit contrived, as is G'Kar keeping Londo in the dark about their investigation. But for the most part the two characters completing their journey from bitter enemies to closest of friends is fantastic, as is the tragic ending (which we already know from War Without End will eventually lead to the death of both of them). Londo made some bad choices in season 2 and he pays the price for them here with 20 years of enslavement by a mind-control parasite while servants of the Shadows take over his beloved planet. I've forgotten a lot about the series, but his fate has stuck with me all these years. It's the kind of ending you want to tell your friends about, to convince them that they need to give Babylon 5 a chance... but ruining it would be bad, so I've tried not to.
Also good was how Garibaldi's alcoholism finally came into play in a big way. Sure it got a bit repetitive because there's only so many ways you can show a guy passed out next to an empty bottle (and it's a bit of a retread of Franklin's stim addiction in season 3), but the season gave the subject the time it deserved, instead of having him develop a drinking problem and then get cured the day after. Plus the arc even led to Lochley getting a good scene! I did miss Proper Garibaldi though, who despite getting his brain back was replaced with Cranky Garibaldi for the first half and Lying Drunk Garibaldi for the second. It was only at the very end that we got the funny, smart, loveable Looney Tunes fan back.
The season also spent a bit of time experimenting with techniques to put the characters on an alien planet, giving us two trips to the streets of the Drazi homeworld! The CGI-augmented sets are still not quite at the level of what the Star Wars series are capable of these days, but then neither are the Star Wars shows at times. It's difficult enough to get this stuff right with Disney money in 2022, so they did pretty well with no money back in 1998.
CONCLUSION
Babylon 5 got compared a lot to Deep Space Nine during its run, and right now I'm thinking about how the two series ended. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that Deep Space Nine became so serialised by the end that when the main story finished, so did the series. Meanwhile Babylon 5's entire last season feels a bit like an epilogue, with the last few episodes in particular being all about goodbyes. In my opinion the two series ideally should've met halfway on this one; with big satisfying dramatic resolutions for both shows, and just enough time spent on showing what the characters do once it's all over.
Some people would argue that season 5 isn't Babylon 5's best season, some might even say it's worse than season 1 in a lot of ways. Personally I don't reckon season 5 is huge step down from the rest of the series in quality, at least not when it gets going and Byron becomes more bearable. It's just not telling as interesting a story. A lot of it feels like an echo of previous seasons, like a shadow of a Shadow War. Especially as the series had to shift gears from 'cathartic pay-off' back down to 'slow set up' to rebuild some momentum, and standalone episodes started popping up again.
Still, despite the fact that the season feels like an expansion pack and you have to buy the novels to get a conclusion for half its storylines, I'm glad it exists. We would've gotten Sleeping in Light either way but the full season gives us proper endings for characters like G'Kar and Londo who would've been left out otherwise. Even if not all the endings are happy ones.
I think last season's Deconstruction of Falling Stars helped prepare me for a season of failure, so I didn't necessarily judge the characters too harshly when things went the way that they did. Sheridan fails with the telepaths, he fails to stop the bombardment of Centauri Prime, he fails to uncover the Drakh plot, he fails to spot Garibaldi's drinking problem and he fails Lyta, but he's a good man and ultimately what he built endures. Unlike B5, which blew up.
Alright, here's one final set of episode rankings for you:
Babylon 5 got compared a lot to Deep Space Nine during its run, and right now I'm thinking about how the two series ended. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that Deep Space Nine became so serialised by the end that when the main story finished, so did the series. Meanwhile Babylon 5's entire last season feels a bit like an epilogue, with the last few episodes in particular being all about goodbyes. In my opinion the two series ideally should've met halfway on this one; with big satisfying dramatic resolutions for both shows, and just enough time spent on showing what the characters do once it's all over.
Some people would argue that season 5 isn't Babylon 5's best season, some might even say it's worse than season 1 in a lot of ways. Personally I don't reckon season 5 is huge step down from the rest of the series in quality, at least not when it gets going and Byron becomes more bearable. It's just not telling as interesting a story. A lot of it feels like an echo of previous seasons, like a shadow of a Shadow War. Especially as the series had to shift gears from 'cathartic pay-off' back down to 'slow set up' to rebuild some momentum, and standalone episodes started popping up again.
Still, despite the fact that the season feels like an expansion pack and you have to buy the novels to get a conclusion for half its storylines, I'm glad it exists. We would've gotten Sleeping in Light either way but the full season gives us proper endings for characters like G'Kar and Londo who would've been left out otherwise. Even if not all the endings are happy ones.
I think last season's Deconstruction of Falling Stars helped prepare me for a season of failure, so I didn't necessarily judge the characters too harshly when things went the way that they did. Sheridan fails with the telepaths, he fails to stop the bombardment of Centauri Prime, he fails to uncover the Drakh plot, he fails to spot Garibaldi's drinking problem and he fails Lyta, but he's a good man and ultimately what he built endures. Unlike B5, which blew up.
Alright, here's one final set of episode rankings for you:
| 22. | Secrets of the Soul - A Byron story with a dull Franklin b-plot where he does some research and then gets taken away at gunpoint for some exposition. |
| 21. | Learning Curve - Mostly about guest stars, with one of them getting dragged from his sick bed to conquer a fear he may not even have. |
| 20. | The Paragon of Animals - This one's all about morality and principles, but I mostly remember Merkat's friend talking about how the Rangers will save them, they must save them! |
| 19. | No Compromises - Possibly the worst of the season openers and certainly the one with the most Byron, but it's not terrible. |
| 18. | The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father - It's a deliberately unspectacular cop story that's really all about the shift in perspective to the Psi Cops. |
| 17. | In the Kingdom of the Blind - It's always nice to see G'Kar and Londo hanging out and Byron's blackmail plan backfires quite spectacularly. |
| 16. | Darkness Ascending - The one where everyone's keeping secrets, which causes Lennier to go rogue to discover who's behind the random attacks. |
| 15. | Meditations on the Abyss - Literally about Lennier meditating in space, though there's also some asteroid dodging action. |
| 14. | Day of the Dead - A solid story spoiled a bit for me by the claustrophobic direction and the overt supernatural elements. |
| 13. | A View from the Gallery - A good idea that's slightly lacking in its execution, but not nearly as irritating as I remembered. |
| 12. | The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari - Uses surreal situations to disguise how simple it is, but it's nice to get to the heart of Londo feelings about his death dream and his actions during the previous four seasons. |
| 11. | The Fall of Centauri Prime - Not a lot happens really, but any scene with Londo in it is heart-breaking. |
| 10. | Objects at Rest - My least favourite of the epilogue episodes (it's the one where Lennier lets Sheridan suffocate to death). |
| 9. | The Wheel of Fire - Another epilogue episode. Stories that share their title with the season itself usually rank higher than this, but it did make it to the top 10 at least. |
| 8. | A Tragedy of Telepaths - Not actually all that tragic, especially as Londo and G'Kar save Proper Na'Toth (who then never appears again). |
| 7. | Movements of Fire and Shadow - I liked Lyta and Franklin's mission to the Drazi homeworld, even though there wasn't much to it.. |
| 6. | The Ragged Edge - I liked Garibaldi's mission to the Drazi homeworld too. |
| 5. | Objects in Motion - Another epilogue episode. I liked this a little more than Objects at Rest because of how joyful the Garibaldi plot is when he finally gets married. |
| 4. | Phoenix Rising - This is the one with Garibaldi and Franklin being held hostage. |
| 3. | Strange Relations - The highest ranking Byron episode. |
| 2. | And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder - A clear step up from previous season 5 episodes I reckon, with fantastic direction elevating the drama of the Alliance going to war. |
| 1. | Sleeping in Light - I really couldn't have picked anything else. |
BABYLON 5 SERIES REVIEW
The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to bring the structure of a novel to television and give science fiction its own Hill Street Blues by telling one large story over 5 seasons. It succeeded, pretty much. The series is the counter-argument to people who say you can't plan out a TV series in advance. Sure the first 5 year plan blew up and jms had to come up with a new plan along the way, but that still counts as having a plan! Fortunately the final result actually turned out better than jms's original idea probably would've done. Real life complications that should've been disastrous for the series, like the departure of half the cast (including the lead), actually strengthened it for the most part. And it was able to introduce some in-universe complications that people just wouldn't have seen coming back then, like the station breaking away from Earth halfway through
Twists like that are likely less surprising these days however, as people have come to expect this kind of storytelling. The introduction of DVD boxsets and streaming services eventually helped serialised television become absolutely dominant as people didn't have to worry about missing an episode or catching up anymore. But Babylon 5 paved the way, inspiring future series like Lost and giving contemporaries like Deep Space Nine a reason to be envious.
Deep Space Nine probably wasn't so envious of Babylon 5's production values however. B5 was a much cheaper series and it looks it. There was no shortage of ambition and innovation, and it often punched way above its weight, but the visual effects never quite evolved to reach photorealism and neither did a lot of the sets to be honest. It's a very stagey series from start to finish, and it didn't help that jms apparently prioritised voices over the rest of the sound design to the point where you can often hear the wooden boards creaking under the actors' feet.
Christopher Franke's soundtrack is another story though, especially compared to 90's Trek's bland sonic wallpaper. The makeup and costuming also matches or exceeds anything Trek was doing at the time. It seems that all the money saved from never leaving the soundstage went into giving the aliens more than just bumpy foreheads. Some of them anyway. The show even had a praying mantis crime boss puppet... until they realised that was maybe a bad idea and sent it off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead.
It'd be fair to say that Babylon 5 is a cheesier series than Deep Space Nine, but it's generally more consistent, thanks to being written by the one author for the most part. One increasingly tired and burned out author. Honestly the writing wasn't always top-tier even after jms became the entire writing staff, though it definitely had its moments. Especially when G'Kar had a speech. But what's the best 90s sci-fi space station saga overall? What would I rather watch if I had to choose? Both of them, obviously. Both of them is best overall.
Though Babylon 5 is maybe a bit more fun to write about.
The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to bring the structure of a novel to television and give science fiction its own Hill Street Blues by telling one large story over 5 seasons. It succeeded, pretty much. The series is the counter-argument to people who say you can't plan out a TV series in advance. Sure the first 5 year plan blew up and jms had to come up with a new plan along the way, but that still counts as having a plan! Fortunately the final result actually turned out better than jms's original idea probably would've done. Real life complications that should've been disastrous for the series, like the departure of half the cast (including the lead), actually strengthened it for the most part. And it was able to introduce some in-universe complications that people just wouldn't have seen coming back then, like the station breaking away from Earth halfway through
Twists like that are likely less surprising these days however, as people have come to expect this kind of storytelling. The introduction of DVD boxsets and streaming services eventually helped serialised television become absolutely dominant as people didn't have to worry about missing an episode or catching up anymore. But Babylon 5 paved the way, inspiring future series like Lost and giving contemporaries like Deep Space Nine a reason to be envious.
Deep Space Nine probably wasn't so envious of Babylon 5's production values however. B5 was a much cheaper series and it looks it. There was no shortage of ambition and innovation, and it often punched way above its weight, but the visual effects never quite evolved to reach photorealism and neither did a lot of the sets to be honest. It's a very stagey series from start to finish, and it didn't help that jms apparently prioritised voices over the rest of the sound design to the point where you can often hear the wooden boards creaking under the actors' feet.
Christopher Franke's soundtrack is another story though, especially compared to 90's Trek's bland sonic wallpaper. The makeup and costuming also matches or exceeds anything Trek was doing at the time. It seems that all the money saved from never leaving the soundstage went into giving the aliens more than just bumpy foreheads. Some of them anyway. The show even had a praying mantis crime boss puppet... until they realised that was maybe a bad idea and sent it off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer instead.
It'd be fair to say that Babylon 5 is a cheesier series than Deep Space Nine, but it's generally more consistent, thanks to being written by the one author for the most part. One increasingly tired and burned out author. Honestly the writing wasn't always top-tier even after jms became the entire writing staff, though it definitely had its moments. Especially when G'Kar had a speech. But what's the best 90s sci-fi space station saga overall? What would I rather watch if I had to choose? Both of them, obviously. Both of them is best overall.
Though Babylon 5 is maybe a bit more fun to write about.
Alright, what's next? I'm going to be covering Star Treks for a couple
of months (a whole bunch of Star Treks) but then I'm getting right back
into Babylon 5 next year with A Call to Arms,
Legend of the Rangers and all that. I'll even cover a little
Crusade, though I won't be writing about the whole series. The reason
for that is that every episode of Crusade I write about is an episode
of something else I'm not writing about, and honestly I think I can
find more interesting science fiction to cover. (I can definitely find
episodes with better music.)
But if you're still craving more Babylon 5 analysis, maybe even interested in revisiting the whole run, I could suggest some other kinds of content for you to consider.
Podcasts:
But if you're still craving more Babylon 5 analysis, maybe even interested in revisiting the whole run, I could suggest some other kinds of content for you to consider.
Podcasts:
-
The Babylon Podcast - These
guys started back in 2006 and have done deep geeking for every episode,
along with interviews with everyone from the main cast to the dolly
grip.
- The Audio Guide to Babylon 5 - Episode discussion from fans doing a full rewatch.
- medusa cascade / Mega Reacts - Two of my favourite first-time Babylon 5 reactors.
- Babylon 5 for the First Time - A video podcast by two first-time viewers who are currently struggling to get into early season 2, but are still heroically pushing through it.
- J. Michael Straczynski's commentaries - Probably relevant to your interests.
COMING SOON
Babylon 5 will return with the movie A Call to Arms. But next on Sci-Fi Adventures, I think I need to take a break and watch something else for a change. Maybe a bit of Star Trek: Discovery, season 4 (part 2).
Congratulations on reviewing the entire series! That, by itself, is pretty impressive. I admire your commitment, and I've enjoyed every review/recap. I've even learned a lot! Most of which I then forgot, but that's okay. I've started reading the series over from the start like I said I would, so it'll be new again.
ReplyDeleteDuh, the best 90s space station saga is obviously Space Precinct.
ReplyDelete