Babylon 5

Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales

Times change. Dangers remain. 10 years after he became President of the Interstellar Alliance Sheridan prepares for a fateful Babylon 5 reunion that could prevent Earth's impending doom...if he will also compromise his core principles. Meanwhile commander Lochley confronts an unexpected interloper on the way station - a being whose presence makes the B5 freeport the crossroads between heaven and hell. In Voices in the Dark Series creator J. Michael Straczynski reunites with stars Bruce Boxleitner and Tracy Scoggins in two richly imagined stories set after the events of the original series. Richly imagined too is Straczynski's vision of the 23rd century (including a dazzling New York City) - a vision made more spectacular via filmmaking technology unavailable during the original series.Running Time: 72 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 085391129844 Manufacturer No: 112984

It'd be hard for any Babylon 5 fan not to feel a surge of emotion when President Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) returns to the space station that was the setting of one of the monumental series in television history. The Lost Tales is a new direct-to-DVD series in an anthology format, the first installment of which, subtitled "Voices in the Dark," includes two stories centering on the return of Sheridan. The first involves Colonel Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) and a crewman (Bruce Ramsay) who appears to be possessed by a demon, to the bewilderment of the priest attempting an exorcism (Alan Scarfe). The second involves Sheridan himself, who upon returning to B5 is asked to pick up a delegate from the Centauri, prince Regent Vintari (Keegan MacIntosh), who's attending the 10th anniversary celebration of the Interstellar Alliance in the place of old Centauri friend Londo Molari. What Sheridan doesn't expect is a psychic visit by techno-mage Galen (Peter Woodward) urging him to kill the boy before he becomes a dictator.

It's a treat to see Sheridan, Lochley, and Galen return from the original series (Woodward was also in the spin-off, Crusade), but The Lost Tales focuses on character-driven stories, and as such there's not a lot of action. The CGI effects are good, but sets are very limited and there are hardly any other cast members. (Sheridan even spends most of his time away from B5.) Creator-writer J. Michael Straczynski has said that if The Lost Tales succeeds, future stories might focus on Delenn or Garbibaldi. While that would be welcome, it might be even better to get a feature film (a la Serenity) that would presumably be on more of the epic scale that Babylon 5 deserves. Bonus features are 17 minutes of off-the-cuff interviews held on the set with Boxleitner and Straczynski, Scoggins and the crew, and Straczynski with Woodward; memorials to late cast members Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs; and Straczynski's diaries and fireside chats, in which he recounts the show's production and answers fan questions. --David Horiuchi

DVD features

• Interviews with J. Michael Straczynski, Bruce Boxleitner, Tracy Scoggins, and Peter Woodward
• Memorials: Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs
• The Straczynski Diaries: a multi-part series of vignettes as filmed by J. Michael Straczynski as he documents every phase of pre-production, production and post
• Fireside Chats: profiling the people of the B5 universe

Babylon 5 - The Movie Collection

Now entering your stargrid: 5 B5 movie adventures in one deluxe set! First time on DVD! Initiate jump sequence for feature-length tales about key events in the B5 chronology. Movie 1: The Gathering - Alien envoys come to the giant space station in the pilot that launched the five-year TV series. Movie 2: In the Beginning - The B5 prequel! It's humans vs. aliens in the battle that led to the station's creation. Movie 3: Thirdspace - Is there a realm beyond hyperspace? Discovery of a million-years-old gateway technology may hold the answer...and more. Movie 4: River of Souls - After death then what? Questions of eternity arise when a supposedly infallible harvester of souls proves to be very fallible. Movie 5: A Call to Arms - The torch is passed. A race against time to save Earth links the B5 mission with the Rangers' new interstellar efforts.Running Time: 469 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 085393343729 Manufacturer No: 33437

The Babylon 5 pilot movie The Gathering was originally broadcast in 1993 a full year ahead of the regular show. A somewhat dull tale of an attempt to assassinate Koch, the Vorlon ambassador to B5, the feature served to introduce Commander Jeffery Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) as well as familiarize the audience with the unique environment of a five-mile-long space station in the year 2257. Missing many of the main cast, and suffering from a leaden pace and mediocre music score, series creator J Michael Straczynski later improved The Gathering by tightening the cut for a special edition (the version released on DVD), adding some deleted character moments and commissioning a new score from series composer Christopher Franke.

Four new TV movies were part of the deal to syndicate Babylon 5. In the Beginning is a prelude set 10 years before Babylon 5, telling the story of the Earth-Minbari war. Told retrospectively, many of the mysteries revealed gradually in the main series are recounted, making the show a collection of spoilers for newcomers while adding little for established fans. It is effective to see events only previously talked about, and enjoyable to have most of the main cast playing younger versions of themselves. River of Souls is a self-contained adventure featuring a return of the Soul Hunters from Season One, while Thirdspace offers a spectacular Lovecraftian space opera which slots into the saga after the end of the Shadow War. A Call to Arms is the most important of the TV films, laying the ground for the future TV series Crusade. Set five years after the Shadow War, it tells the story of a Drahk revenge attack on Earth. A final showcase for Bruce Boxleitner as Sheridan, the story fits between fifth-season episodes "Objects at Rest" and "Sleeping in Light." The cliffhanger ending sets the scene for new starship Excalibur to boldly go on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds and find a cure for the Shadow virus infecting the Earth. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Complete Fourth Season

The future begins - or ends - here and now. Here is the huge space station Babylon 5. Now is the fateful year 2261. Commander John Sheridan has already declared the station free breaking the ties between it and Earth Alliance. It was perhaps only a matter of time before he would have to fight to remain free.Running Time: 966 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 085392797226 Manufacturer No: 27972

Season 4 began on a high point with the Centauri Prime in the grip of the insane Emperor Cartagia (Wortham Krimmer) and a run of six shows leading to the climax of the war against the Shadows in "Into the Fire." If this colossal narrative was resolved a little too easily and the ultimate aim of the Shadows turned out to be a tad disappointing, it still proved to be the most powerful slice of space opera to ever grace the small screen. In the aftermath the sheer scale dropped back a little but the pace never slowed as the rest of the season played out in one relentless cycle of conspiracy, betrayal and conflict, Babylon 5 siding with the rebel Mars colony against the totalitarian Earth.

Meanwhile Delenn came increasingly into conflict with her own people and, paralleling her relationship with Sheridan, Garibaldi became involved with his ex-fiancée Lise Hampton (Denise Gentile), while an intense platonic love grew between Ivanova and Marcus Cole. On an unstoppable wave fuelled by roller-coaster plot twists and spectacular action shows from "No Surrender, No Retreat"--when Sheridan avows to overthrow EarthGov--to "Rising Star"--when the aim is realized--Babylon 5 achieved a consistent excellence rare in television. Yet within that run "Intersections in Real Time" stood out as a bold experiment; essentially a two-hand drama taking place entirely within one dimly lit room. Beyond this a major character died and Sheridan and Delenn married before the season finale again broke with expectation. In "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars," a future descendant of humanity one million years hence reviews excerpts from the history of Babylon 5. In one sequence set in 2762, a Brother is devoted to the preserving of history some time after the "Big Burn." A homage to Walter M. Miller's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, Sheridan and Delenn have themselves become the stuff of legend. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Complete Third Season

The complete third season of this acclaimed science-fiction cult favorite is now available as a 6-disc DVD collector's set.
Running Time: 968 min.

Format: DVD MOVIE

"Matters of Honor" launched Babylon 5's third season with the introduction of the White Star, a spacecraft added to enable more of the action to take place away from the station. Also introduced was Marcus Cole (Jason Carter)--in another nod to The Lord of the Rings, a Ranger not so far removed from Tolkien's Strider. In "Voices of Authority" the show finds an epic scale as Ivanova seeks the mysterious "First Ones" for allies against the Shadows, and evidence is discovered pointing to the truth behind President Santiago's assassination. A third of the way through the season "Messages from Earth," "Point of No Return," and "Severed Dreams" prove pivotal, changing the nature of the story in a way previously unimaginable on network TV. Earth slides into dictatorship, the fascistic Nightwatch takes control of off-world security, and Sheridan take decisive action by declaring Babylon 5 independent.

"Interludes and Examinations" presented the death of a major supporting character, while the two-part "War Without End" reached apocalyptic dimensions in a complex tale resolving the destiny of Sinclair and the fate of Babylon 4 (dovetailing elegantly with the events of the first season's "Babylon Squared"), resolving a 1,000-year-old paradox and presenting a vision of a very dark future for Sheridan and Delenn. All this was trumped by the monumental "Z'ha'dum." In the preceding "Shadow Dancing" Anna Sheridan (Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Boxleitner's real-life wife) returned from the dead, no longer entirely human. In the mythologically resonant climax Anna invited Sheridan back to the Shadow homeworld with no hope of survival. Just as in The Lord of the Rings Gandalf fell into the abyss at Khazad-Dum, so Sheridan took a comparable leap into the unknown on an alien world. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Complete Second Season

This 6-DVD set includes all 22 episodes from The Complete Second Season of the cult science-fiction favorite Babylon 5.
Running Time: 960 min.

Format: DVD MOVIE

Delenn's future love interest, Captain John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) arrived on Babylon 5 in the first episode of season 2, "Points of Departure." The show marked the handing over of command of B5 to Sheridan from Commander Jeffery Sinclair, actor Michael O'Hare becoming a victim of studio politicians who wanted a bigger star in the leading role. This excellent installment also revealed more about why the Minbari surrendered to Earth at the Battle of the Line when they were on the verge of victory. "Revelations" explains that Sheridan's wife, Anna, died during an archaeological survey of the world Z'ha'dum, the name being just one of many references to Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings (the bridge at Khazad-Dum). "The Geometry of Shadows" introduced the Technomages, characters who featured more significantly in the ill-fated spinoff series Crusade (1999), while "The Coming of Shadows" proved to be Babylon 5's finest hour to date. The story of political intrigue foreshadowing the fate of two of the major characters beat Apollo 13, Toy Story, 12 Monkeys, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Visitor" to win the Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation at the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention and proved so powerful that J. Michael Straczynski included it in his Complete Book of Scriptwriting.

"And Now for a Word" took the unusual step of presenting a day-in-the-life of B5 seen through the eyes of a TV news crew, just as the Narn declared war on the Centauri. The inclusion of a PSI-Corps commercial paid homage to Paul Verhoeven's satirical ads in Robocop (1987), while his later Starship Troopers (1997) seemed at times like a spoof of B5's earnest space opera. In "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum," Sheridan learns that Morden was on the ship on which Anna died; the episode sees the captain pushed to his limits by grief and determination to discover why Morden survived. Three exceptional shows conclude the season. The Narn-Centauri war escalates in "The Long, Twilight Struggle," Sheridan faces a most unusual ordeal in "Comes the Inquisitor," and in "The Fall of Night" all hope of peace is shattered as a nerve-racking assassination attempt reveals a startling secret about Ambassador Kosh. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Complete Fifth Season

From the beginning, both were running out of time. The space station that was the last, best hope for peace was sooner or later certain to be eclipsed by new political coalitions and technical advances. And John Sheridan, who guided the massive freeport t

A disappointment after the superb two previous seasons, the final run of Babylon 5 found Claudia Christian departed and Ivanova replaced by Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Tracy Scoggins), who in a soap-opera twist turned out to be Sheridan's first wife. Sheridan was promoted to President of the Interstellar Alliance and the action moved to a group of telepaths seeking sanctuary from the PSI-Corp on B5. Giving a prominent role to Patricia Tallman's Lyta Alexander, a love story for her was woven with the leader of the telepaths, Byron (Robin Atkin Downs). Meanwhile the aftermath of the Shadow War was explored as the origin of human telepaths became clear in "Secrets of the Soul," and the appearance of PSI-Corp's Bester (Walter Koenig) brought the plight of the refugees to a powerful close in "A Tragedy of Telepaths" and "Phoenix Rising."

This was immediately followed by a rare episode not written by J. Michael Straczynski. Much was expected of "Day of the Dead," penned by Neil Gaiman, the British creator of DC's landmark Sandman comic and graphic novel series. Yet despite a change of tone including a guest appearance by Penn & Teller as 23rd-century comedy favorites Rebo & Zooty, the story proved an incongruous side trip into an unexplained twilight zone of fantasy. As usual the season picked up toward the end, with a string of fine political episodes leading to "The Fall of Centauri Prime" and the haunting "Objects at Rest," in which Sheridan and Delenn leave Babylon 5 for new quarters on Minbar.

The final episode, "Sleeping in Light," was directed by J. Michael Straczynski and made an epilogue to the series. Set 20 years later, after all the sound and fury this quiet, elegiac tale is the apotheosis of the love story that proved the balance to the tragedy of the preceding darkness. A personal story resolved against a background of the epic, at once transcendent, deeply human, and profoundly optimistic, "Sleeping in Light" is as moving as any hour in the history of television drama and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest series ever made. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Complete Television Series (5-Pack)

Own all five seasons of the award-winning series about the space station that's the tumultuous center of the 23rd century's bid for peace among humans and aliens.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 085393481520

The epic sci-fi series Babylon 5 was a unique experiment in the history of television. It was effectively a novel for television in five seasons, consisting of 110 episodes with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The first season introduces the main characters, headed this year by Commander Jeffery Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), and familiarizes the audience with the unique environment of a five-mile-long space station in the year 2257. The first episode, "Midnight on the Firing Line," plays at a breathless pace, introducing Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and establishing the conflict between the Narn and Centauri races as represented by their ambassadors, G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik). B5 hits warp speed with a run of exceptional episodes building to the season finale. The two-part "Voice in the Wilderness" has Mars breaking into open revolt against Earth and the discovery of a "Great Machine" on the dead world Epsilon 3. Referencing 1950s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, the story leads to the superb time-travel-based "Babylon Squared." Season finale "Chrysalis" proves more than just the usual television cliffhanger, placing Minbari ambassador Delenn in conflict with her ruling Grey Council and forcing on her a decision that laid the groundwork for Babylon 5's eventually becoming a great love story.

Delenn's future love interest, Captain John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) arrived on Babylon 5 in the first episode of season 2, "Points of Departure." The show marked the handing over of command of B5 to Sheridan from Commander Jeffery Sinclair, actor Michael O'Hare becoming a victim of studio politicians who wanted a bigger star in the leading role. "Revelations" explains that Sheridan's wife, Anna, died during an archaeological survey of the world Z'ha'dum, the name being just one of many references to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (the bridge at Khazad-Dum). "The Coming of Shadows" proved to be Babylon 5's finest hour to date, and in "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum," Sheridan learns that Morden was on the ship on which Anna died. Three exceptional shows conclude the season. The Narn-Centauri war escalates in "The Long, Twilight Struggle," Sheridan faces a most unusual ordeal in "Comes the Inquisitor," and in "The Fall of Night" all hope of peace is shattered as a nerve-racking assassination attempt reveals a startling secret about Ambassador Kosh.

"Matters of Honor" launched Babylon 5's third season with the introduction of the White Star, a spacecraft added to enable more of the action to take place away from the station. Also introduced was Marcus Cole (Jason Carter)--in another nod to The Lord of the Rings, a Ranger not so far removed from Tolkien's Strider. A third of the way through the season "Messages from Earth," "Point of No Return," and "Severed Dreams" prove pivotal, changing the nature of the story in a way previously unimaginable on network TV. Earth slides into dictatorship, the fascistic Nightwatch takes control of off-world security, and Sheridan take decisive action by declaring Babylon 5 independent. "Interludes and Examinations" presented the death of a major supporting character, while the two-part "War Without End" reached apocalyptic dimensions in a complex tale resolving the destiny of Sinclair and the fate of Babylon 4, resolving a 1,000-year-old paradox and presenting a vision of a very dark future for Sheridan and Delenn. All this was trumped by the monumental "Z'ha'dum." In the preceding "Shadow Dancing" Anna Sheridan (Melissa Gilbert, Bruce Boxleitner's real-life wife) returned from the dead, no longer entirely human. In the mythologically resonant climax Anna invited Sheridan back to the Shadow homeworld with no hope of survival. Just as in The Lord of the Rings Gandalf fell into the abyss at Khazad-Dum, so Sheridan took a comparable leap into the unknown on an alien world.

Season 4 began on a high point with the Centauri Prime in the grip of the insane Emperor Cartagia (Wortham Krimmer) and a run of six shows leading to the climax of the war against the Shadows in "Into the Fire." If this colossal narrative was resolved a little too easily and the ultimate aim of the Shadows turned out to be a tad disappointing, it still proved to be the most powerful slice of space opera to ever grace the small screen. In the aftermath the sheer scale dropped back a little but the pace never slowed as the rest of the season played out in one relentless cycle of conspiracy, betrayal and conflict, Babylon 5 siding with the rebel Mars colony against the totalitarian Earth. On an unstoppable wave fuelled by roller-coaster plot twists and spectacular action shows from "No Surrender, No Retreat"--when Sheridan avows to overthrow EarthGov--to "Rising Star"--when the aim is realized--Babylon 5 achieved a consistent excellence rare in television.

The final season found Claudia Christian departed and Ivanova replaced by Captain Elizabeth Lochley (Tracy Scoggins), who in a soap-opera twist turned out to be Sheridan's first wife. Sheridan was promoted to President of the Interstellar Alliance and the action moved to a group of telepaths seeking sanctuary from the PSI-Corp on B5. Meanwhile the aftermath of the Shadow War was explored, and as usual the season picked up toward the end, with a string of fine political episodes. The final episode, "Sleeping in Light," was directed by J. Michael Straczynski and made an epilogue to the series. Set 20 years later, after all the sound and fury this quiet, elegiac tale is the apotheosis of the love story that proved the balance to the tragedy of the preceding darkness. A personal story resolved against a background of the epic, at once transcendent, deeply human, and profoundly optimistic, "Sleeping in Light" is as moving as any hour in the history of television drama and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to one of the greatest series ever made. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5 - The Legend of the Rangers

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  WARNER BROTHERS Packaging:  DVD STYLE BOX Rating:  NOT RATED Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers is a two-hour television movie created by J. Michael Straczynski (original creator of the Babylon 5 series) for the Sci-Fi Channel. The telefilm takes place in 2264 after the wars are over and a new age of space exploration has begun. The Interstellar Alliance has been organized to establish and maintain peace among its member worlds including Earth. The Rangers are an elite military force made up of hand-picked young smart dedicated human and alien members who combine the high-tech elements of space travel with the idealism and honor of the knights of old. They encounter a previously unknown alien race whose lethal power is far greater than any force previously known to Earth or any other world in the Interstellar Alliance.DVD Details:Running Time: 90 min.Actors: Dylan Neal Andreas Katsulas Alex Zahara Myriam Sirois Dean Marshall See moreDirectors: Michael VejarFormat: Closed-captioned Color Dolby Subtitled Widescreen NTSCLanguage: EnglishRegion: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1Number of discs: 1Rating: Not RatedStudio: Warner Home VideoDVD Release Date: March 14 2006Available Subtitles: English Spanish FrenchAvailable Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround)

Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers is a two-hour television movie created by J. Michael Straczynski (original creator of the Babylon 5 series) for the Sci-Fi Channel. The telefilm takes place in 2264 after the wars are over and a new age of space exploration has begun. Science-fiction fans are notoriously hard to please, and few have anything good to say about The Legend of the Rangers, produced in 2002 to introduce a spinoff of the popular Babylon 5 TV series. The naysayers have a point. Few elements of this 90-minute pilot, subtitled "To Live and Die in Starlight," will likely be memorialized among the genre's golden moments; the dialogue is often clunky and on-the-nose, the acting is less than stellar, and the effects work, while pretty good, doesn't live up to the standard set by Stargate, Farscape, and others. Nevertheless, there's a reasonably compelling story here, involving the elite Rangers (made up of humans and aliens alike, including the Minbari, who sport "head bones" instead of hair and whose cute little ears are placed on the sides of their necks) and the threat posed to the universe by a mysterious new foe known as "the Hand" (these are some seriously bad dudes, a race that has lain dormant for many years but is now back with a vengeance). Front and center is human Ranger David Martell (played by Dylan Neal). Court-martialed for choosing to save his crew rather then lead them to certain death (in violation of a code mandating that "we do not retreat, whatever the reason"), he's put in command of the Liandra, a ship that's not only funkier than Han Solo's Millennium Falcon but haunted to boot. Of course, as events play out, Martell and his pals end up as the last line of defense against the Hand, not only pitted against these implacable enemies but also dealing with a traitor among the good guys. The themes (honor vs. expediency, dark forces arrayed against peace-seekers, human impetuousness tangling with ancient alien wisdom) are familiar, and the outcome is far from unpredictable. Still, there are a lot less entertaining ways to spend 90 minutes than with Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers. --Sam Graham

Babylon 5 - The Complete First Season

The award-winning series about the space station that's the tumultuous center of the 23rd Century's bid for peace among humans and aliens hyperdrives onto DVD in a Deluxe 6-Disc Set.

The epic sci-fi series Babylon 5 was a unique experiment in the history of television. It was effectively a novel for television in five seasons, consisting of 110 episodes with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The first season introduces the main characters, headed this year by Commander Jeffery Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), and familiarizes the audience with the unique environment of a five-mile-long space station in the year 2257.

The first episode, "Midnight on the Firing Line," plays at a breathless pace, introducing Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and establishing the conflict between the Narn and Centauri races as represented by their ambassadors, G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik). Then follow several mediocre episodes that initially give the impression that B5 is a Star Trek clone afflicted with "silly alien of the week" syndrome. With "And the Sky Full of Stars," B5 really begins to hit its stride, Sinclair being forced to relive his mysterious experiences during the Earth-Minbari war. Filler shows such as "TKO" are notable only for being controversially violent, while the disappointing "Grail" points to writer-creator J. Michael Straczynski's fascination with Arthurian mythology. "Signs and Portents" introduces the sinister Mr. Morden (Ed Wasser) and offers the chilling first appearance of the Shadows, an ancient alien threat.

B5 hits warp speed with a run of exceptional episodes building to the season finale. The two-part "Voice in the Wilderness" has Mars breaking into open revolt against Earth and the discovery of a "Great Machine" on the dead world Epsilon 3. Referencing 1950s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, the story leads to the superb time-travel-based "Babylon Squared." Season finale "Chrysalis" proves more than just the usual television cliffhanger, placing Minbari ambassador Delenn in conflict with her ruling Grey Council and forcing on her a decision that laid the groundwork for Babylon 5's eventually becoming a great love story. --Gary S. Dalkin

Babylon 5: The Gathering/In the Beginning

The long-running, Emmy-winning TV series launches onto DVD with two feature-length adventures about an outer-space way station.

In spring 1993, a year before the Babylon 5 series was launched, the two-hour movie and series pilot "The Gathering" staked out the initial territory, introducing primary characters (some of whom would never appear again) and sketching the alliances and rifts in interplanetary diplomacy. The central story involves the attempted assassination of the newly arrived Vorlon, the mysterious Ambassador Kosh, at the hands of (perhaps) Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare). This is the reedited cut released on video, a stronger, more engaging film than the original, but still a broad first stab at characters that would be redefined through the course of the show's run.

"In the Beginning," produced between the fourth and fifth seasons, packs all the history alluded to in "The Gathering"--and more--into a prequel stuffed to the hatches with the epic doings of Earth, Minbar, Narn, and Centauri in the days before the Babylon stations were built. Infused with epic sweep and storytelling confidence by producer-writer Michael J. Straczynski and his cast and crew, it's an elegant, compelling addition to the Babylon 5 universe and a dramatic highlight of the series. It's not an ideal introduction, though, as it gives away the shadowy history slowly revealed through the first three seasons. --Sean Axmaker