CONFUSED BY THE VORLON? BEWILDERED BY THE MINBARI? HERE IS REVEALED ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IN THIS QUICK BITE GUIDE TO BABYLON 5...
High above Epsilon 3 in designated neutral territory is space station Babylon 5, a combination of colony, waypoint and Interstellar United Nations. Built by the Earth Alliance, B5 is home to delegations from all the major space powers - the mysterious Vorlons, the imperial Centauri and their arch-foes the Narn, as well as the enigmatic Minbari, and smaller nations like the Drabzi, the Markab and the Pak'Ma'Ra from the imperiously named League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
But all is not well at this convocation of species. Echoes of ill-feeling between castes of the Minbari and EarthForce still exist ten years after the Battle of the Line (the last stand in a war that brought Minbari battle cruisers to Earth's doorstep before they inexplicably surrendered). The Centauri have bombed the Narn homeworld back to the stone age, and a corrupt Earth government has declared martial law, forcing Babylon 5 to declare independence. Then there's the sinister Psi-Corps - the telepathic police force whose reach extends further than the Earth authorities realise.
But all these are mere asides next to the greater darkness that looms over the galaxy. From the rim of known space come the night-black creatures called Shadows, a millennia old evil gathering its forces for the final battle in an ancient war.
Part soap opera, part space adventure, part war story, part conspiracy drama, Babylon 5 is an epic tale on the scale of sagas like Dune, Helliconia and Foundation. Creator, executive producer and main writer J Michael Straczynski envisaged the series as running for a five-year story arc, with each series acting like a novel in the saga, broken down into chapters/episodes.. After season 4 B5 was nearly cut, but TNT stepped in and took over financing of the show. Season 5 (the concluding season) has now finished showing, and there are also 4 TV movies and a spin-off series called Crusade.
The show is suffering from bizarre scheduling in the UK as C4 seems to want to deter anyone from actually watching it, maybe so they can drop the show at the end of this final season. They also cannot decide if it a childrens' or an adults' program, due to the amount of cutting needed to show it before the watershed there is really no question, especially given its predominantly adult fanbase. The final 5 episodes of the fifth and final series finished showing on C4 on Sunday 31st January. C4 are now continuing to show the first series repeats in this late night time slot.
Needless to say it finished well and tied up most loose ends, a few of the unanswered questions were tied up in the 4 TV movies and the short Crusade spin-off series (13 episodes). It really was quite a monumental series, and I'm very glad that it was actually completed pretty much as it was intended to be. I think it will be some time before we see its like again, probably not until the full value of this series has been realised. I think it compares to Blade Runner which took a long time to get true recognition and now seems to get better and more accepted every year, it could be some time yet before everyone has caught up with B5's mind bending story arc.