Adventures In Babylon 5
"It was the Dawn of the Third Age of Mankind, ten years after the Earth-Minbari War. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal .. all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last, best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5."
I think the narration that opens every episode of season 1 of Babylon 5 gives an excellent overview of the series. Its creator, J. Michael Straczynski, is a genius. He planned a five year/season story arc from the beginning, although it seemed for a time as if it would be cancelled after four seasons. So JMS filmed the final episode of the series and prepared to show it at the end of season four. But the series was picked up for the last season, so we got the ending that he wanted.
If you want a more substantial overview, there’s a good one here on Wikipedia. This series, which ran in the 90s, was waaayyyy ahead of its time. Although the special effects can look somewhat crude by today’s standards, they were cutting edge when the show was being aired. The world-building was deep and layered…when you heard about characters from a particular species’ history, you could almost feel the weight of the ages behind the story. In that regard, it feels a little like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings stories. Tolkien did write huge amounts of backstory for the whole history of his world, so when little bits and pieces are mentioned in passing by a character, they feel like real pieces of history.
In regard to world-building, JMS stated in a 1995 interview:
“Once I had the locale, I began to populate it with characters, and sketch out directions that might be interesting. I dragged out my notes on religion, philosophy, history, sociology, psychology, science (the ones that didn't make my head explode), and started stitching together a crazy quilt pattern that eventually formed a picture. Once I had that picture in my head, once I knew what the major theme was, the rest fell into place. All at once, I saw the full five-year story in a flash, and I frantically began scribbling down notes.”
The initial pilot was aired a year before the series aired, and can only be purchased as part of the whole series. It cannot be purchased separately anymore. The overall arc of the first four seasons is the war with the Shadows. Once that is resolved, Earth must be wrested back from the control of a ruthless despot who has split the loyalties of Earthforce down the middle, voided treaties with other races, and so badly mistreated Earth’s own colonies that they have declared independence from Earth. I admit, I didn’t care much about season 5, but not because it is lacking in quality…just that once the major arcs were addressed, I didn’t have as much interest in the series anymore. For this (admittedly lengthy) review of this fantastic space opera, I thought I’d take my usual approach and list my favorite episodes.
**Spoiler Alert**
Season 1, Episode 20: Babylon Squared
The first season with Jeffrey Sinclair in command of Babylon 5 was very much a sort of “setting up” season, which can’t be properly appreciated until the viewer proceeds through the series, at which time it becomes clear how much groundwork was being laid. This episode is a sort of time-travel episode but our main characters don’t really travel in time. Well, sort of. But not really. This was the prelude to the season 3 two-parter, “World Without End.” It’s interesting on its own but once this particular plot arc concludes, it’s fascinating. I don’t actually want to say much about the plot, because out of context it won’t make much sense. So I will summarize by saying that Babylon 4 went mysteriously missing immediately after it came online and no one knows what happened to it. Then Babylon 5 detects a time rift, through which distress calls from the Babylon 4 crew are received. Sinclair, Garibaldi, and others take shuttles through the time rift to evacuate the crew. While they are there, they encounter an alien named Zathros who might know what is going on but is either so cryptic or so deliberately obfuscatory that no one can figure out what he’s talking about. In the course of the evacuation, Zathros is left behind as Babylon 4 vanishes, its whereabouts once again unknown.
Season 2, Episode 3: The Geometry Of Shadows
This episode mostly feels like a standalone, but still with little hints here and there about the larger overarching plot of the series. There are three main plotlines running simultaneously and with various degrees of overlap: first, Garibaldi, still recovering from being shot in the back, is trying to decide if he will return to his position as head of security; second, a large group of travelers known as technomages are passing through the station on the way to an unknown destination; and third, one of the main races occupying the station, the reptilian Drazi, have suddenly started fighting what appears to be a civil war amongst themselves.
“We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers."
Centauri Ambassador Molari tries desperately to get an audience with the technomages, in order to boost his political reputation on the Centauri home world. His efforts do not go well, with some comical results, right up until the very end of the episode, where the lead technomage Elric (played by TV veteran Michael Ansara) predicts that Molari has a very dark future ahead, where he will be the cause of millions of deaths. Sheridan has been tasked by his own government to find out where the technomages are going and why. During his discussion with with technomages, Elric tells him, “We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner, holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ and we know many things.” While explaining why he and his brethren are leaving, passing beyond the rim (the edge of the known universe), he tells Sheridan,“There is a storm coming…a dark and terrible storm.” The technomages wish to preserve their knowledge from destruction, so they are leaving.
The Drazi conflict, which reginites every five years, is initially a bit humorous. Ivanova, newly promoted to commander, is tasked with finding out why they are fighting all over the station, and putting a stop to it. Sheridan frames the assignment as her first foray into the world of diplomacy. Ivanova gets the two groups of Drazi together to find out what their differences are in the hopes that she can figure out a way to resolve it. She is appalled to discover that there are no differences to resolve because the two factions are chosen completely at random. All the Drazi assemble, and one by one, they draw a scarf out of a barrel. If they draw a purple scarf, they are part of the purple faction. If they draw a green scarf, they are green faction. And the two factions fight until one is clearly victorious and then that group leads their people for the next five years, at which time it starts all over again.
But during this cycle of conflict, the green faction ups the ante and starts killing their purple brethren. Ivanova’s final solution to the problem, although discovered by accident, is nonetheless completely effective at ending the conflict.
And Garibaldi, having assisted Ivanova out of a tight spot, feels ready to reclaim his position as head of security and is welcomed back.
Season 3, Episode 4: Passing Through Gethsemane
At the beginning of the episode, we learn of the death of personality as a substitute for the death penalty: the convicted offender’s memories are blocked, their personality erased, and a new, calm, non-criminal personality overlaid. I think it is much more cruel than simple death but I can’t deny that sentencing the new personality to community service for the rest of his or her life at least gives back a little bit to humanity, as opposed to flat out execution or the cost of imprisoning someone for the rest of their life.
Also at the beginning of the episode, we meet Brother Edward, a monk stationed on board Babylon 5, along with his other brethren. He is charming and kind and clearly deeply devoted to his decidedly Christian faith. In a philosophical discussion with Minbari Ambassador Delenn and her attaché Lennir about belief systems, he speaks of the night Christ spent in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to “let this cup pass from me”, so that he would not have to suffer the death that was coming to him the next day. Brother Edward points out that even though his prayers were not granted, Christ could have left the garden. But instead, he waited there for his captors to come take him. Brother Edward wonders if he himself would have had the courage to wait in the garden, knowing what was coming. Also during this discussion, there is a tiny bit of foreshadowing, as Lennir gets excited about discussing the sacred figure of Valen. “They say he came out of nowhere a thousand years ago…a Minbari not born of Minbari.”
Brother Edward begins to hallucinate and see things that he starts to suspect are suppressed memories. He does some research and realizes that he is in fact a serial killer who was sentenced to death of personality and assigned to Babylon 5. A telepath has been hired to trigger the hidden memories. Brother Edward realizes that this can only be the work of the families of his victims, who are almost certainly coming for him.
When he realizes who he really is and what he has done, Brother Edward asks his senior Brother Theo how he can repent to God for his sins if he doesn’t even know what they are. “The mind forgets, but the stain on the soul remains.” Brother Theo pleads with him, saying “If you ask God to forgive your sins, He knows what they are even if you’ve forgotten. Leave it in His hands.” Brother Edward is not convinced and goes on to his own Garden of Gethsemane, waiting for those who are coming for him. I found this episode both disturbing and deeply moving.
Season 3, Episode 10: Severed Dreams
This is one of the most exciting episodes in the series, in my personal opinion. In addition to lots of action, there are also many long-term plot arcs coming visibly together. Delenn, having been informed that the Minbari Grey Council has taken a non-interference position in defiance of custom and prophecy, gets herself to their ship and dramatically disbands the council, taking two thirds of the council members with her in defense of Babylon 5.
President Clark, not satisfied with martial law on Earth, tries to implement it on the Mars colony as well. When they refuse martial law, he orders the bombing of the domes, killing hundreds of civilians. On a planet without an atmosphere, there is no life without the domes. Other Earth colonies break away from the Earth alliance in protest, and Babylon 5 follows suit.
'Withdraw or be destroyed."
Of course, President Clark won’t let that stand, so he sends battleships to take control of Babylon 5 by force. Captain Sheridan and his command crew decide to resist. With the aid of a couple of battleships that oppose Clark’s forces, Babylon 5 manages to fend off the first wave of fighters. But the station takes a beating, and as soon as the first wave is defeated, the second wave arrives. Sheridan is preparing to witness the destruction of his station when Delenn arrives with her own Minbari battleships and warns off the remainder of Clark’s forces, who wisely retreat instead of forcing Delenn to destroy them.
Season 3, Episodes 16/17: War Without End
This is the last we see of actor Michael O’Hare, who played Jeffrey Sinclair. Until he died in 2012, the reason for his departure from the show was not publicly known. But after his death, show creator Straczynski finally revealed that the actor suffered from severe mental illness, causing (among other things) paranoid delusions and hallucinations, and felt he was unable to continue doing the show. O’Hare had requested this not be made public until after his death.
“Zathros have very sad life. Probably have very sad death. But…at least there is symmetry.”
Part 1: Delenn on Babylon 5 and Sinclair (now ambassador) on Minbar both are given letters that have been held for them for hundreds of years. Sinclair travels to Babylon 5, meets up with Sheridan, Delenn, Ivanova, and Marcus, and they all head for the sector where they encountered the time slip and Babylon 4 in the previous episode “Babylon Squared.” The time rift is open again, and the transmissions coming out of it make it clear that if something doesn’t change, Babylon 5 will be destroyed by the Shadows in eight days’ time. The group boards a White Star ship and enters the time rift with the goal of taking Babylon 4 into the distant past to be a base of operations for the Minbari in another war with the Shadows that occurred a thousand years ago. On the way through the rift, the time stabilizer given to Sheridan malfunctions, and he vanishes from the ship. The others continue with the mission, while Sheridan finds himself imprisoned with Delenn (the future Delenn) on what is clearly the Centauri homeworld sometime in the future.
“Sinclair: “You ready?”
Delenn: “Why do your people always say that right before they do something massively unwise?”
Sinclair: “Tradition.””
Part 2: Some time is spent during this episode relating what happens 17 years after the Alliance wins the Shadow War. Spoiler alert: they don’t win completely. But then, as Delenn points out, the darkness is never entirely defeated. Delenn warns Sheridan, “Do not go to Z’Ha’Dum!” And then they both witness the terrible fate of (now) emperor Londo Molari before Sheridan is once again cast adrift in time, eventually making his way back to Babylon 4 through some technobabble that I decided long ago not to analyze too closely.
The Babylon 5 group manages to take control of Babylon 4, help evacuate her crew (although their earlier selves from previous episode Babylon Squared do most of the heavy lifting for the evacuation), and then prepare to send Babylon 4 back in time. As they are preparing to leave Babylon 4 themselves, Sinclair says that he must stay with the station and ride it back through time. He says he knows he must because, “I already have. I always did.” The letter he received on Minbar back at the start of this 2-part episode was a letter he wrote to himself. And Delenn confirms this, since she also received an ancient letter from him.
The final scenes reveal that the revered Minbari figure Valen, “Minbari not born of Minbari,” is in fact Sinclair, changed by the triluminary into a human/Minbari hybrid, just as Delenn was altered at the end of season 1.
This double episode is a little too convoluted and complex to be completely satisfying…but I admit, I love both parts and I find the revelation of Sinclair as Valen to be particularly enjoyable.
Season 3, Episode 22: Z’ha’dum
This is the final episode of season 3, and at the end, things appear very dark indeed. We learn MUCH in this episode. For example, Anna, Sheridan’s long-presumed-dead wife, makes a sudden reappearance, advocating for the Shadows and asking Sheridan to accompany her back to Z’Ha’Dum to learn “the truth” about the Shadows.
I’m going to leave out most of the details of the episode and just concentrate on the large reveal. Millennia ago, when the elder races passed beyond the rim, two stayed behind to help protect and guide the younger races: the Vorlons, and the Shadows. The Vorlons tried to help by influencing societies and occasionally tampering with the DNA of a race, which is how telepaths suddenly entered the human population about a century before our story takes place. The Shadows, on the other hand, decided that conflict brought out the strength of a race, so they fostered wars both inside a species and between entire races. Both the Vorlons and the Shadows also found ways to strike at each other using the younger races as weapons and cannon fodder.
This is all explained to Sheridan on Z’Ha’Dum, where he also learns that his wife Anna had been captured by the Shadows when she came to the planet on an archeological mission. She refused to cooperate with them and so they placed her inside one of their organic ships as the central processing unit. This erased her personality and Anna ceased to exist. When they learned who she was in relation to Sheridan, they removed her from the ship and implanted a new personality that tried to mimic the Anna that was. But Sheridan was not fooled, and at the end of the episode, he brings one of the white star ships crashing down into the planet loaded with nuclear warheads which detonate. Just before the ship strikes the surface, Sheridan hears the Vorlon ambassador Kosh’s voice in his mind, urging him to jump. And so he leaps into the abyss deep in the planet, where his fate is unknown but he is presumed to be dead.
Season 4, Episode 20: Endgame
I loved this episode…even more than the episode where the Shadows are defeated (Into The Fire). Here, Sheridan’s multi-planetary force moves toward Earth to take it back from the despotic rule of President Clark. They are opposed by most of EarthForce, who are still honoring their vows of loyalty to Earth’s government. First, the coalition strikes at Mars, where the EarthForce ships are waiting for them. With help from the rebellion on the ground, they smuggle altered telepaths onto the EarthForce ships and activate them. The telepaths, altered by the Shadows to be new central processing units for Shadow vessels, seek out the machinery of each ship and start wreaking havoc, rendering most ships unable to fight.
Sheridan sweeps past the disabled EarthForce ships and proceeds to Earth. In a stirring speech, he broadcasts to Earth, “Your sons and daughters have come home.” He pleads with the rest of the government to do the right thing and depose President Clark. Meanwhile, we see Clark, alone in his office, sending some command to the defense grid around Earth. He then shoots himself in the head right before senators and guards break down the door to arrest him. One of the senators sees that Clark has left a note reading “scorched Earth,” surmises that Clark has turned the defense grid against Earth, and pleads with Sheridan to take out the grid before everyone on the whole planet is wiped out.
Sheridan’s forces do indeed take out the grid, with EarthForce ships coming to assist at the last minute. It’s quite exciting.
"I love you."
There is one side story that, while not essential to the overall plot, is nonetheless one of the most moving things I have seen in this series. Ivanova was mortally injured in a previous battle and sent back to Babylon 5 so that they can keep her comfortable until she passes. Marcus, who loves her deeply, digs into medical records until he finds the information about an alien device (from Season 1) that transfers life force from one person to another. Dr. Franklin had locked it away as being too dangerous until he could figure out how to control it precisely. He was pretty sure that it would require the entire life force of one person to heal another who was near death. Marcus leaves before the final battle, goes to Babylon 5, disables anyone who tries to stop him, and attaches the alien device to himself and Ivanova. In the last scene of the episode, he slowly fades into unconsciousness, curled up next to Ivanova. His last words to the unconscious Ivanova are, “I love you.” And then he closes his eyes.
I think the Bible summarizes this best: “Greater love has no man than this…that he lay down his life for his friend.”
Season 5, Episode 22: Sleeping In Light
Sheridan and Delenn watch their last sunrise together.
I don’t want to say too much about this episode. I will say that it occurs 20 years after the events of the series, when Sheridan’s life is coming to an end. He arranges to meet up one last time with all his old friends, and we get to find out what has happened to each of them, as well as witnessing the final fate of Babylon 5. And then Sheridan parts from Delenn, steps into one of the white star ships, and goes out into space alone. When the ship is found sometime later, it is adrift, with no sign of Sheridan.
Although this final episode aired roughly 25 years ago, it definitely stands the test of time, as does the entire series. It’s rich, detailed, funny, heartbreaking, romantic, exciting, and lots more adjectives I could list but this article is already excessively long, so I’ll leave it here. Check it out…you won’t be sorry.
