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Narrative
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"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A self-contained world five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space, all alone in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind...the year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5." (Opening narration, season 2) "The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But, in the Year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory. The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5." (Opening narration, season 3) "It was the year of fire... the year of destruction... the year we took back what was ours. It was the year of rebirth... the year of great sadness... the year of pain... and the year of joy. It was a new age. It was the end of history. It was the year everything changed. The year is 2261. The place: Babylon 5." (Opening narration, season 4) Babylon 5, created by J Michael Straczynski, ran from 1994-1998 (a two-hour pilot, "The Gathering", had aired in 1993). It was syndicated for its first four seasons, and was shown on TNT in its fifth. Babylon 5 took the use of Story Arcs to new heights, and introduced the concept of the Wham Episode, with probably over half of its episodes contributing to one major series-long arc (a Myth Arc). JMS had plotted out much of the arc before the series began, and occasionally referred to it as a five-year long Mini Series. (The fourth and fifth seasons had to be telescoped into one when the show was going to be prematurely ended. Then it was Un Cancelled and picked up by TNT, and they had to scramble to create a fifth season, which was not as well-like by most fans.) While the series is often given as an early example of a hard science fiction show, it does have aliens with powers verging on magic and Psychic Powers. Still, by TV standards, it's fairly crispy sci-fi. Likewise, while the show is often seen as being more toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, at times almost edging into Black And Grey Morality, it also has some shining moments of idealism as well. It spun off the short-lived series Crusade which ran for 13 episodes in 1999, telling the story of the spaceship Excalibur and the search for a counteragent to/cure for a slow-acting biological weapon that had been successfully deployed against the Earth. Despite its unfortunate resemblance to Star Blazers, Crusade showed considerable promise before its premature death. There were several associated Made For TV Movies:
In case you're wondering why the opening narrations at the top of this entry don't include a fifth season opening narration, in the fifth season a series of key quotes from the first four seasons was used to summarize the events of the series to that point. While the first four narrations provide a good feel for the series for those unfamiliar with it, the quotes over the fifth-season opening sequence may not be very meaningful to people unfamiliar with the series. For the sake of completeness, here it is: "And so it begins." "There is a hole in your mind" "What do you want?" "No one here is exactly what he appears." "Nothing's the same anymore." "Commander Sinclair is being reassigned." "Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld while you're at it?" "I see a great hand reaching out of the stars." "Who are you?" "President Clark has signed a decree today declaring martial law." "These orders have forced us to declare independence." "...weapon supplies..." "...unless your people get off your encounter-suited butts and do something..." "You are the one who was." "If you go to Z'Ha'Dum, you will die." "Why are you here?" "Do you have anything worth living for?" "I think of my beautiful city in flames..." "...giants in the playground..." "Now get the hell out of our galaxy!" "We are here to place President Clark under arrest." (Opening narration, season 5) An excerpt from Commander Susan Ivanova's voice-over at the end of the Distant Finale "Sleeping in Light" may be more meaningful, however: "Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. "It taught us that we had to create the future, or others will do it for us. "It showed us that we have to care for each other, because if we don't, who will? "And that strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places. "Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings, even for people like us." |
