rationale

So I've decided to watch the complete chronological run of Babylon 5. Mainly because I can and because doing something similar with Doctor Who (not actually a complete run in that case, obviously) was a fun way to pass eleven months. And because I've turned into an inveterate critic I've decided to share my observations on the show with you, my trusty Moderator (plus anyone else who has the misfortune to stumble by). So off we go.

the gathering, midnight on the firing line, soul hunter

Okay, like most UK viewers (I expect), my introduction to B5 was weird in that the network showing it transmitted the pilot at the end of the first season rather than the beginning. Go figure. Anyway watching it again now is weird because - even for a ten year old TV movie - it looks primitive. Really primitive. Some of the CGI isn't much better than home PC standards.

And it doesn't really feel like proper B5, either: the graphic design is different, it has (terrible) music by Stewart Copeland, and so many of the regular cast aren't actually in it. There are all kinds of little oddities, like the cameras and the privacy screening, not to mention Delenn's knobbly makeup, that didn't make it into the full series.

But the story is pretty good, even if it strains a bit to accommodate all the scene setting. JMS's epically rotten dialogue is fully in evidence right from day one, which is... nice.

One thing the gathering shares with midnight... is that it has G'Kar as the thoroughly black-hearted villain. The political analogy JMS seems to be shooting for is that Earth is the US (obviously), Minbar is Japan, Centauri Prime is a fading European power (Britain, France, whatever), and Narn is Iraq (sticking POWs on TV, launching unprovoked invasions, etc). One of things that impressed me about this show right from the start was the political angle which was rather more coherent than the one in Trek. Something about this episode impressed me enough to stick around for the next 109 episodes, which is more than (for example) the Farscape pilot did. Even so, this episode isn't really much more than routine, if promising. you have to watch it again having seen season 2 to appreciate the depth of foreshadowing going on here.

More foreshadowing and filling-in-background in soul hunter, the first of many 'wandering looney' episodes. This one's okay although the middle section is a bit static. This may be due to the surprising absence of a subplot of any kind. More cheesy JMS dialogue, though he does 'mystical and portentous' better than 'macho'. Slightly dodgy acting from Mira Furlan, but it's early days. Nice make-up on the Soul Hunters though.

born to the purple

An episode of such near-comprehensive badness it nearly made me question why I'm doing this. It's vacuously sentimental, it's tritely plotted, and the best bit in it is G'Kar and Ko'Dath (wonderful full-throttle performance from Mary Woronov) playing with Vir's Gameboy (or the Centauri equivalent).

Londo the vainglorious clown is fine. Londo the haunted tyrant is even better. But Londo the romantic, sensitive soul, being led around by the nether-tentacles? I think not. Not even Peter Jurasik seems to believe in the script. Hardly surprising given Londo's startling night attire - and where exactly does his hair go when he's wearing that cowl later on?

(And the subplot - kicking off the 'Susan Ivanova's dead dad' micro-arc - is more of the same only even worse.)

infection

Well, an episode JMS famously hates, but while I don't think it's great it's still better than ...purple. A bad story about a rampaging monster (nice rubber suit, actually) is preferable to a bad story about an unconvincing syrupy romance.

But it's not great, like I say: none of the Ambassadors appear, which must make it a real rarity, and Sinclair (Mike O'Hare's decision to underplay the part is interesting, but he's dangerously close to being dull a lot of the time) talking the monster to death is just one of many Trek cliches on display. The Teen Titans in-joke is one of the most interesting things about this episode. Say no more.

the parliament of dreams

At last, a really good episode. Well, the subplot with Catherine Sakai is another JMS cheese-a-thon, the main plot is rather lacking in twists, and the final scene manages to be both powerful yet very smug. But the Narns are always great value, the stuff with the other ambassadors is a hoot, and it's just full of great B5 quirks. Top one.

mind war

Naff title, pretty good episode. This is due to some interesting (if not exactly original) ideas, a nice performance by an almost-unrecognisable Walter Koenig, and some good special effects. It's also our first glimpse of the 'other' G'Kar, the thoughtful, almost spiritual character, as opposed to the machiavellian schemer. It must have been about this time that this show really started to grow on me - characters really don't usually have this much depth to them. Pity that Sinclair remains a largely charisma-free zone, but never mind (apparently John Rhys-Davies from Lord of the Rings auditioned for the part - the mind boggles).

(Although, come to think of it, in light of what later emerges about the troubled psyche of Talia Winters it is a bit surprising that super-telepath Godlike-being Ironheart doesn't notice Talia's mental you-know-what. Maybe he was distracted, or something...)

the war prayer

Mmm-mmm, okay, I suppose, but clearly the work of someone not hugely familiar with the show - it's all a bit tell-not-show (and, for that matter, rather corny). For all that it's a D.C. Fontana script, the scenes with Ivanova and Biggs have that JMS fromagey whiff all about them. The characterisation of G'Kar and the other ambassadors isn't quite up to scratch either. As I say, not actually a bad episode, just not up to the standard of the last couple.

and the sky full of stars

It would be fatuous to point out what a massive debt this story owes to The Prisoner (particularly the episodes Many Happy Returns and especially Once Upon A Time). And as you'd expect, it's a pretty good episode, too - Christopher Neame is a tiny bit OTT, I'd've liked to see what Patrick McGoohan and Walter Koenig (the first and second choices for the role) would've made of it.

It even manages to surmount the lack of a subplot (unusually vital to B5, I'm realising) and certainly the best performance so far from Michael O'Hare. Having said that, the story asks at least as many questions as it answers, which makes it more of a statement of intent by the series than an actual progression in the main story. This annoys me far more now than I remember it doing in 1994, for some reason...

deathwalker

Hmm, a nice solid episode with (for once) a minimum of foreshadowing and arc-related back story. Impressive turnout of regular cast as well - and the closest thing to an acting performance I've ever seen Sarah Douglas give (meow). I think I detect the influence of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron in the main storyline, which is thought-provoking and nicely paced and oddly topical right now (mid-April 2003).

As for the B-story... comedy Kosh is a weird idea and his friend is just annoying, but... I can't figure out what's going on here. I always thought Talia's departure was unplanned due to the actress and JMS falling out, but this suggests it was part of the story all along. In which case, why wasn't this plot thread ever mentioned again? Very odd. Also, Mr Goingbaldi's (terrible, terrible pun, which I won't use again, I promise) comment that the Vorlons don't trust telepaths seems peculiar given that the telepath gene is actually part of the Vorlon bioweapons program. Methinks the Vorlons are putting everyone on on this subject.

Oh, and Deathwalker's uniform makes her look like a doorman.

believers, survivors

Wow. I remembered believers as a solid little episode but this time round it knocked my socks off. To begin with I had my doubts about its impartiality on the science/religion debate (Mr and Mrs Tharg are not, I suspect, how the faithful might wish to be portrayed on screen, and the audience - one would expect - would be on the side of the doc just cos he's a regular) but it won me over completely, it's great. Franklin is just arrogant enough (great acting job by Rick Biggs) for it to work. The first time B5 goes into Trek's moral dilemma-ish territory and it utterly kicks the bigger show's butt. The lack of an obvious, easy answer is supremely commendable in the ethically duotone world of TV SF.

Nice use of the ambassadors, too, and their reasons for not getting involved are telling - G'Kar's is that there's nothing in it for him personally, Londo's is that it'd cost too much, Kosh's is incomprehensible, and Delenn's is that it's morally none of her business.

The B-plot with Ivanova flying around in her X-wing is, however, blatant and charmless filler material, excusable only in that it keeps the Raiders on the, er, radar ahead of signs and portents.

survivors is inevitably a bit disappointing after the preceding episode and it's not helped by two very dodgy acting performances amongst the leads. I hate to say it but at this point in time there's not much more to Garibaldi than a hairstyle and an attitude, and Liana Kemmer is possibly even worse (she's very poorly directed, too, stressing the wrong words in some of her lines).

Still, it looks ahead in all sorts of ways, most notably Londo's speech to Garibaldi - 'there is still hope for people like us' he basically says, which later turns up as virtually the last line of the series. But on the whole a fairly thin and disappointing episode.

(Garibaldi using the bad guy's link at the end doesn't match continuity from - I think - exogenesis, either. They must've changed the rules by then...)

by any means necessary, signs and portents

by any means necessary is a great idea as far as making B5 realistic and distinctive goes, but the execution doesn't match the strength of the concept. The main problem is that it's much too simplistic: following the moral shades of grey in so many other episodes the heroic oppressed dockworkers and the evil yuppie-scum management rep are a big disappointment. The stuff with G'Kar and Londo is a bit too jokey to convince too. Both stories are resolved with a deus ex machina, really, too.

And so to signs and portents which actually seems really weird. I didn't know of the existence of a 'big story' until the start of season two, so when I first saw it signs... just came across as the B5 equivalent of TNG's 'Q Who', setting up a few plot threads but nothing absolutely momentous. Watching it now, it's a good, solid episode, that takes care not to scream 'look at me, I'm so important to the future', while still remaining absolutely crucial. A strength, unless you're expecting a the coming of shadows-style epic. Nice space battle too.

I wonder why Mr Morden didn't ask Sinclair his Question. Hmmm, maybe it's on the lurker's guide.

(later) Oh so it is. I should've figured that out for myself anyway. Still...

tko

Dear oh dear, Mr Ditilio, not this cliched old story again - that same boring mixture of Jewish religious practice and inter-species bare-knuckle boxing. How about some original ideas?

Okay, I'm joking - 'original' doesn't do tko justice, it's more heading towards 'jaw-droppingly bizarre' or even 'mad as a taxi full of custard'. But, for all its weirdness (and the fact it must have the lowest number of regulars in it of the whole series - barring intersections... - and all Sinclair has to do is stand round looking benignly sage) I'm quite fond of it.

Well, half of it. The Jewish stuff is terrible, Koslov couldn't be more of a cliche if he was played by Jackie Mason and came on singing 'if I were a rich man'. And who the hell are all those people at the shiva? Doesn't B5 have it's own rabbi if there are so many Jews there? Oy vey.

The boxing bit is much more fun, even if it is a wandering looney story crossed with Rocky-in-latex. The fight itself is rather good, nice score as well.

But, overall, for all that JMS goes on about the importance of the 'Susan Ivanova's dead dad' micro-arc, this is one of the more dispensable episodes of B5. As Channel 4 clearly realised...

grail, eyes

grail is probably the epitomy of 'wandering looney' episodes, but it's saved (almost single-handedly) by David Warner, like you couldn't have guessed that would happen. He manages to make a deeply implausible character rather affecting and charismatic and his relationship with Jinxo (who looks rather like Bill Hicks, not that it means anything) somehow rings true.

The Feeder still looks fantastic even today, and the gag about the alien abductions at the start is great. Togther these go to make grail good fun, even though all the regulars on display get very little to do...

The off-beat trend the season's taking continues in eyes - well, in the B-story, anyway, the point of which escapes me. (Garibaldi's got a motorbike in his quarters? Since when?) The point of the A-story is staggeringly obvious - 'let's recap the season so far and foreshadow some upcoming stuff in a very heavy-handed way'. The continuity is nice, if a bit relentless, but it's all let down by a hopelessly OTT performance by the bloke playing ben-Zayn, it's barely credible that such a crazed martinet could have risen so high in the armed forces (even if he is an Israeli - hi there, moderator! Hope you liked my little joke!). For some reason Jeffrey Combs (hardest working man in Trek) is barely recognisable as his psychic sidekick, but he does his usual estimable job.

legacies, a voice in the wilderness

Hmmm. legacies is a nice solid episode, nothing too exceptional though. Neatly structured too, my one misgiving is Delenn cheerfully doing something that could very easily kick off a second round in the Earth-Minbar war. Oh, and Commander 'I'm so placid and wise' Sinclair doesn't really seem to be the grudge-bearing type.

It was around the time I first saw this episode that I began to get inklings that this wasn't just Trek in different costumes - at this point I knew that the season finale was called chrysalis, so this episode was the first time I was able to spot and make sense of a piece of foreshadowing.

The protracted absence of G'Kar is getting noticeable, though - he doesn't appear at all between signs... and chrysalis - I didn't see eyes on its first broadcast and thought he might have been killed off that week, thus explaining his disappearance!

a voice in the wilderness is probably the highlight of the first season - it's not really fair to compare double-length episodes with their titchy kin, but anyway... A 'big' episode that looks big and manages to underplay almost all of its foreshadowing. There's so much going on in the climax it's quite exhilarating. Jerry Doyle still isn't quite up to playing those intense personal scenes though...

babylon squared

...as we see again here, particularly in his flashback but also in the hard-to-take-seriously Garibaldi plays bouncer sequence. By this point it's clear that this is a series unafraid to pitch big, but on this occasion the result is oddly unsatisfying - it's clear that this is an episode designed to make the viewer go 'Wow! That's clever!' tow or three years later - and while I like to defer my gratification as much as the next man (unless he's Sting, obviously), that's a little too long to wait. But apart from that it's fine. (Delenn's story is unnecessary filler.)

(One of my nearest and dearest was in the room as I watched this and couldn't stop laughing when Sinclair told the fighter pilots to 'saddle up'. Draw your own conclusions.)

the quality of mercy

Solid stuff. The serial killer plotline is no better than indifferent – he’s so cornily written, and Talia’s brittle whininess is starting to grate – but the story with Franklin and the doctor is interesting, particularly with hindsight (the second time I saw this episode was mid-season three and I thought ‘Wow! Massive foreshadowing and I never noticed it!’) , and the odd couple business with Londo and Lennier out on the razz is hilarious, the most memorable part of the episode. Fun.

chrysalis

'Someone else is out there.' Dumb I may be but at this point I still thought B5 was another episodic series with occasional arcs, rather like early-90s TNG. For all it kicks over the table in terms of the show's setting it's not that much more dramatic than the Borg assault at the end of season three of that show, or all the business with the Romulans and Klingons a year later.

Well, anyway - intense stuff, a tremendous atmosphere of despair and impending doom is generated. Nice to see G'Kar again (the most basic research reveals this episode was made a long way in advance, Andreas Katsulas must have been off doing a movie or something during all the episodes made after this one). I'd forgotten just how beautiful and terrible the Shadow craft look. Ivanova still has terrible dress-sense when off-duty - hopefully this is a subtle piece of characterisation - either that or Claudia Christian seriously hacked off the costume designer). Once again, an important episode but not immensely memorable or outstanding beyond its role in the arc.

so, all in all...

Well, I'll tell you: I started watching B5 again on not much more than a whim, and ploughing through the first few episodes was hard work. But by the time I hit mid-season, I was entirely hooked once more and actively making time to watch each new installment.

This season breaks down into roughly four chunks - the first being the episodes up to parliament of dreams, which are all a bit clunky and heavy-handed. But the show hits its stride with parliament and the run from there to signs and portents is mostly very accomplished indeed, the odd duffer (survivors, for example) notwithstanding. After this comes a string of, er, quite eccentric episodes, mainly by 'guest' writers, featuring such diverse topics as Judaism, bodysnatching, motorcycles, the Holy Grail, and bare-knuckle boxing. I quite enjoyed this off-beat style, but the increasing dominance of JMS behind the typewriter means this is very much a passing phase. From voice... onwards its back to business as usual, cranking up various piece of the arc and setting up the plot for the following season.

It's probably unfair to compare season one of B5 to its successors - everyone involved is clearly on a steep learning curve, and the show itself changes style. But I enjoyed on its own merits, which are mostly different from those of the seasons following.

The first of which is, of course, The Coming of Shadows.