Originally published February 6, 2012, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1264
“It’s not going to be as good.”
That’s what I heard fans muttering when word broke of the syndication deal that would provide Babylon 5 with a regular slot on TNT, aired five times a week in a time slot that—unlike in many cities—wasn’t at such a hideous hour of the morning that viewing it required either a VCR or a healthy shot of No-Doze.
B5 has been somewhat unique in television history: An ongoing novel by J. Michael Straczynski (usually called “Joe”; indeed, fake “pals” and “intimate friends” of Joe have been weeded out by the switchboard at Babylonian Productions when they’ve called up and asked to speak to Michael or—even better—their good friend Mike), B5 was a tough sell from the get-go. Not only did fans have to convince potential converts to put aside their Star Trek prejudices, and not only did the potential converts have to find the dámņëd show, but then they had to commit to watching several episodes just to get a feel for the series.
Thanks to the perpetually dropped clues that never paid off in the same episode, the stockpiling of hints, the mysteries wrapped in enigmas, and dialogue so impenetrable that Jason Vorhees couldn’t hack his way through it, becoming involved in Babylon 5‘s acclaimed arc was a demanding proposition. Fans had to be willing to give more commitment to a TV show than Larry King gives to the average marriage. In this day and age where channel surfing is the norm, that’s asking a lot.
Yet somehow, through sheer force of will by both creators and fans, Babylon 5 survived challenge after challenge to its very existence and managed to make it to a fifth season on TNT. The first four seasons are stripped into syndication at 7 p.m. EST, and new episodes have begun airing probably by the time you read this. Furthermore, the series was launched with a two hour prequel, In the Beginning, which details the circumstances involving some of the major backstories of the series including the Earth/Minbari war (or, as an actress is caught saying in one of the outtake reels, the Earth/Minibar war).
Fans seemed perfectly prepared to watch the series from the beginning, taking the opportunity to tape it if they hadn’t already. They were eagerly anticipating being able to see the entire tapestry from the beginning, with all the apparently throwaway comments or seemingly random developments that actually related to the overall thrust of the story.
In the relaunch of the series, we also have the opportunity to reevaluate to the show in its developmental stages. Seeing the characterizations of the war-mongering and belligerent Ambassador G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and the broken down pathos of Ambassador Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) for instance, now is fraught with poignancy and irony when one considers the directions that their respective character arcs took them.
We notice redesigns and adjustments on alien make-up (most conspicuously on Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan), and come to realize that some characters deserved to disappear from the series if, for no other reason, than that they looked stupid from the get-go and never stopped looking stupid (a puppet-like alien who bore a resemblance to a giant preying mantis comes to mind).
We also have the opportunity to reassess Michael O’Hare’s performance as Commander Jeffrey Sinclair. I admit that I was underwhelmed when I first saw Sinclair in action; he reminded me of nothing so much as one of the marionette performers in Fireball XL-5. But I got used to him as the season progressed and now, in watching his work from the beginning, his body of work seems far more impressive. Sinclair comes across as stately, thoughtful and cerebral. More comfortable and confident in his role of diplomat than his successor, Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner). Plus the ghosts that haunt Sinclair, the “hole in his mind” as is mentioned in the pilot film, are more understandable since we not only know all the subsequent developments, but—for those who weren’t watching the series in the first place—much of it is laid out up front in In the Beginning.
Indeed, for many fans, that seems to be the rub.
The general thought was that the syndication of the series—and the attendant publicity, something that was never forthcoming during the original run—would result in new viewers for the series. As opposed to waiting weeks for plot threads to unfold, the story would now reveal itself within days. Plus anyone watching the prequel would know a number of the key mysteries which were not explained until late into the first season or even the second. The reason for the Minbari surrender during the Earth/Minbari war, the threat of the upcoming Shadow war, the real reason as to why Delenn was on the station—many of the secrets fans waited weeks, even years to learn were now being handed up front to newcomers.
It almost seemed like cheating. As if to really enjoy Babylon 5, one had to be willing to watch the series for lengthy periods of time in confusion and bewilderment, else it didn’t really count. Kind of like whether one is “more Jewish” if one keeps milk and meat plates separate; knowing what was going on with B5 at the very start of the series just didn’t seem kosher somehow.
If anything, long-time fans felt sorry for newcomers. If they watched In the Beginning (which apparently they did, in considerable numbers) Babylon 5 would lose what many considered to be its greatest draw: the mystery. The chance to try and figure things out or be surprised. In the pilot film, The Gathering, Jeffrey Sinclair describes the climax of the famed “Battle of the Line,” the last battle of the Earth/Minbari war. He speaks of how, in a last desperate gesture, he set his fighter barreling towards a Minbari cruiser—and the next thing he knew, it was twenty-four hours later and he had no recollection of the intervening time. In the original airing, the viewers were as clueless as Sinclair. This time around, anyone who watched Beginning knew exactly what had happened to Sinclair, and why.
The question to be considered is: Does that automatically mean that watching B5 is less of an experience for newbies?
I don’t think so. Actually, I think it’s superior. I wish they could’ve done it this way the first time.
First, with all deference to the notion that we were watching a novel-for-television, let’s face it: How often do you go into a novel with practically no idea of what it’s about? Between word of mouth, reviews, and promo copy on the dust jacket, you usually have some idea of what the overall thrust of the book is. With B5, beyond the fact that it was essentially “Rick’s Place” in space, an orbiting Casablanca, the audience went in not knowing much of anything. For many would-be viewers, it was the equivalent of being a child in the backseat of a car who has no clue as to the whereabouts or nature of the destination, demanding over and over, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” And Joe would be the irritated father in the front seat saying, “No! We’re not there yet! While we’re getting there, try and see how many different license plates you can spot!” And as it turns out, all those license plates would have been relevant, but the temptation was to say, “The heck with this,” and leap out of the car en route.
With the current way that it’s being done, the annoyance factor is gone. The initial sense of aimlessness, the concern that none of these vague hints was ever going to pay off, never materialize. Fear of perpetual obtuseness shouldn’t be mandatory for watching a television show. It’s a more relaxed and enjoyable experience.
“But isn’t there now a lack of suspense?” many will ask. Wasn’t the entire draw of the series its mystery? With the key secrets revealed, how can there be any suspense?
Well, there is, but it’s a different kind of suspense. It’s soap opera suspense, which is fairly appropriate since it’s now a daily drama rather than a weekly series.
In the average soap opera, secrets held by various characters which are unknown to the viewer are the more boring variety of suspense-generators. Soap operas function on the rumor-mill theory of suspense, and since human beings eat, sleep and breathe rumors, it’s a formula that has functioned extraordinarily well. For on soap operas—and, this time around, on Babylon 5—key secrets are known by the audience. They are not, however, known to the characters, and that is where the suspense comes in. For instance, let’s say that a soap character named Lance is married to Rosa. Rosa has an affair with Barry. This fact is not hidden from the audience. Viewers don’t wonder if Rosa had an affair or who it was with. In fact, the audience was probably present when the affair was consummated.
Knowledge, however, is very empowering. There’s nothing greater than feeling as if you are one step ahead of the characters, particularly when dealing with the daily soap opera format.
Because what happens in the above scenario is that the viewer tunes in every day, not to find out who Rosa had an affair with, but instead to learn what will happen when Lance learns of the affair—as he inevitably will. And Lance is usually the last to know. What will happen before that is that every single person in town except Lance learns that Rosa has been catting around. The husband, as they say, is always the last to know. So not only does the suspense build as we wait to see Lance’s reaction to the news, but to his inevitable subsequent discovery that everyone else in town knows already. Will he feel used? Betrayed? Angry? Will he kill someone as a result? Will he kill Rosa? Kill himself? The viewer has the opportunity to conjure up all sorts of scenarios because he has a foundation upon which to build.
Audiences like being in control. The initial run of B5 required that the viewer turn himself completely over to Joe Straczynski. This time, although Joe is naturally still in command, the viewer has some control of the situation. Granted, it’s control that was ceded by Joe in the first place, but it was given over nonetheless.
And why not? Isn’t that what many audiences want nowadays? Isn’t that, after all, part of what has made interactive computer games so popular? They’re interactive stories wherein the audience has control over the situation, taking the narrative where he wants it to go. For some people, novels are simply too regimented. Why should they let the author steer the boat when they themselves might have a better idea? Audiences control their computer games, readers control—to some measure—what goes on in comic books (and if you disagree, you need look no further than the demise of the spider-clone due almost entirely to massive fan rejection of the concept). And, as of this point, although Joe remains the storyteller, fans can comfortably exert some empowering “control” over Babylon 5 simply by dint of the fact that they know what’s going on with the story and Sinclair et al don’t.
To that end, Joe Straczynski—who wound up filming the series-concluding episode of B5 as part of season 4, although it now won’t air until season 5—may want to consider a totally different tack with his follow-up series, Crusade. He might actually want to run the last episode as the pilot, and then have everything else build backwards towards it. Kind of like a Harold Pinter play, or an episode of Seinfeld. Maybe we should do it with all films and television series coming out nowadays. After all, the biggest film in theaters right now has an ending that’s been known to audiences for over eighty years, namely, the ship sinks.
Guess Joe wasted his time on Murder She Wrote. He should really have been writing episodes of Columbo.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)
• 
Another case of a the reprinted column being relevant to current events. As some of you may know, we lost Michael O’Hare this week. That’s the fourth main cast member since the show ended.
Oh my god, he died just three days ago? Geez.
My feelings exactly, David. It was a real gut punch to read about Michael’s death a few days ago. With that in mind, I found that B5 was very much in my thoughts this past weekend. I remember interviewing O’Hare back in ’93 while he and his fellow cast members were waiting to find out if the pilot was going to go to series or not. Certainly the sense I got from everybody was cautious optimism, that they had just worked on something special and were hoping to pick up where they left off. I’m glad they got their chance.
I must admit that I’m one of those who jumped ship on the show early. As in, I mentally checked out about five minutes into the original pilot. They lost me with the zoo-like alien “guest quarters” and didn’t get me back. It wasn’t a matter of a Trek bias…it just didn’t “click” for me. Over the next couple of years, people whose opinions I generally share and respect kept recommending the show to me, so I’d tune in occasionally. And, whenever I did, it was the same episode…the one that (from what I gather) brought Walter Koenig into the mix. The show just never won me over.
Years later, after sampling his first few issues of Spider-Man, I reached the conclusion that, when it comes to the work of JMS, I just don’t care for the stuff that he has a strong hand in. It happens. Unfortunately, my B5 experience led me to, despite being quite a fan of PAD, skip the initial launch of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. Didn’t pick it up until the first post-“The Other” issue, as I had no interest in reading only 1/3 of a story.
Oddly enough, though, while not being a fan of the show itself, I love many of PAD’s B5 anecdotes, like the Babearlon 5 story. Go figure.
–Daryl
I first saw B5 when Bruce Boxleitner (sic?) took over the station, and even without all the prior foreshadowing, I enjoyed it thoroughly. When I did chance to see earlier episodes, I found Sinclair very wooden.
As for the slowly-unfolding mysteries and long-term foreshadowing, much as I like B5 I can also see how that didn’t work. It doesn’t do an author much good to start putting all the clues together in chapter 30 if the reader has lost interest and stopped reading at chapter 8. (It also didn’t help B5 that it was on at the same time as DS9, where you could jump right into the action.)
I passed on B5 while it was on, but finally got around to seeing it years later, well after Crusade ended. And, yeah, I found it difficult to get through the 1st season of B5, and a lot of it was because I didn’t care for Sinclair.
But I definitely enjoyed the rest of the series, as well as most of the TV movies.
If there was some sort of revival now, I think I’d be on board with it from the start.
I’m sorry to hear about the death of Michael O’Hare.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been re-watching Babylon 5, and I found myself growing to like the character of Commander Sinclair over the course of watching the first season. That’s not to say I had different feelings on previous viewings; just that I took better notes, so to speak, this time around.
I agree with series creator J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) that it would have stretched credulity to have had Sinclair’s story tie in with both the Minbari and the Shadows, so giving the latter arc to a different character (Sheridan) was the right thing to do. Even so, it would have been interesting to have seen the five-year arc with Sinclair there the whole time.
That said, I’m not sure that JMS’ original idea, as detailed in Vol. 15 of the script books, of ending Babylon 5 on a cliffhanger, then starting a second series– Babylon Prime— to conclude the story, would have been the best way to go. What if that second series hadn’t materialized?
Other than one episode of Law and Order several years ago, the only other thing I’ve seen Michael O’Hare in was an episode of The Cosby Mysteries, which I happened to watch about a month ago. James Lynch isn’t the only one to have described O’Hare as “wooden” in playing Sinclair, but I think PAD was right in the original article that O’Hare was portraying a thoughtful and cerebral character. By contrast, O’Hare’s character in The Cosby Mysteries was nothing like Sinclair.
My condolences to Michael O’Hare’s family and friends.
Rick
Somebody once pointed out- quite perceptively I thought- that Michael O’Hare was somebody who dodn’t appear quite comfortable in his own skin. That could sometimes work quite well for the character of Sinclair and other times, well, not so much. It didn’thelp that he also had to suffer through some of B5’s worst episodes- I suspect if bruce Boxleitner got stuck with Infection of Grail, he probably wouldn’t have fared much better. I always like Michael as a person and enjoyed the time I got to spend with him over the years, but I’m not sure he ever managed to conquer his inner demons, whatever they may have been.
Babylon 5 was a groundbreaking TV show. As it happens, it was about 10 years ahead of its time, both in the maturity and complexity of the themes and the characters, and the fact that it was really one long story, not a series of 45-minute adventures.
I never really cared for Star Trek, and you could even say that I had a bias against “space” shows, but B5 won me over. Maybe it helped that I watched from the second season onwards. I hear a lot of grumbling about season 1.
I’m sad to discover Michael O’Hare is gone. Like I said, I’ve not watched Season 1 (except for the pilot and two episodes that were released in VHS), but I’m still sad to hear of it.
Nytwyng – I’m no fan of a lot of JMS comic book work. Please, don’t let that color your impression of B5. I think it would be similar to someone considering James Robinson’s current work while thinking about reading his STARMAN series.
I think a few writers have just one piece of genius in them, one really great story, and when that piece is used, the rest of their work can range from mediocre to awful.
If anything, Rene, it’s the other way around…B5 has colored my perceptions of his comics work. Being thoroughly unimpressed with the former, I had some degree of expectation to dislike the latter.
–Daryl
Nytwyng,
Don’t let the few first episodes ruin the whole series for you. Give it one last try starting with In the Beginning (ITB) and then jumping to Season 2 which introduce Captain Sheridan -he is also on ITB but that was filmed later-or just start with Season 2. Season 3 is awesome and it introduces Marcus and the Rangers which I consider the “Jedi” of the Babylon 5 universe. Instead of lightsabers they use a retractable staff.
In all honesty, Tony, with the exception of the pilot (which I watched specifically because it was the pilot and I thought it looked cool), I have no idea what season the episode(s?) I saw later were from. I know for sure that at least one viewing was a repeat, as I remember seeing the same Koenig episode at least twice. The show just wasn’t my cup of tea. No harm, no foul.
–Daryl
If you’re just checking out random episodes, of course it’s not going to be entertaining, or compelling. It’s like reading a random chapter from a novel, and then being frustrated that you don’t know what’s going on.
I don’t think that’s a foregone conclusion. Otherwise, if we follow this logic, after seeing only the first couple of episodes when they originally aired, I wouldn’t have been able to jump into Lost in early- to mid-season 3. But I did. Did I have questions about elements that must have been related to portions that I’d missed? Sure. But I became engaged enough as a viewer to stick around.
Even if the story being told is designed to go on for several years, that shouldn’t bar latecomers from being able to dive in. The overall characters and storytelling would still give that newcomer a spark of interest to come back for more, and possibly seek out information to fill in the blanks. That would be even more important in B5’s day, before DVD when easy access to entire past seasons wasn’t a reality.
So, I’d say that, if JMS put the show together in such a way as to discourage anyone who didn’t watch from day one from joining the fold, that’s another strike against B5.
–Daryl
Nytwing, I started watching B5 from Season 3, and I was hooked right away, in the way you were with LOST. Took me a while to get everything, and I eventually got back to watch Season 2, but BABYLON 5 was worth it, every minute.
Conversely, I’m still ambivalente about LOST. I like the show, but it was not as well planned as B5.
Though it may be that the episodes you watched were from Season 1. I keep hearing that Season 1 was not very good. But Season 2 onwards definitely had the “spark” of characterization and storytelling to keep even beginners hooked.
Loved that show then and love it now. I was one of the ones who started watching from the pilot on and stayed with it (minus a bit in the middle of season one because of the local station) and actually really dug the unfolding mysteries aspect of it. I did have reservations about Michael O’Hare’s performance back then, but, like you, by the end of season one I was enjoying his take on the character.
It was kind of funny. I had at first assumed that he had changed the way he was playing the character, but when I finally got to re-watch the first season of the show I realized that his take had just grown on me. He didn’t change it much at all and even the things that I was put off by with his performance in the first few episodes no longer bothered me. I think it was just a matter of his take on the character being somewhat against the grain of the expectations for what many of us thought that type of character “should have” been.
Very sad to see the news of his death the other day.
In a completly unrelated topic. The guys at Trekcast, a podcast you can subscribe to in itunes, are encouraging their listeners to listen to the audiobook version of Imzadi and they are going to do an audiobook review episode. In the latest episode they had high praise for PAD. They made some mistakes tough. One of the podcasters called New Frontier “Excalibur” and another one though he was talking about the comic book of the same name.
I watched the B5 pilot and was unimpressed. Some of the sets and effects seemed cheesy, and that belligerent, reptilian alien – what a cliche! So I skipped most of the first season, and only came aboard for good after hearing that a favorite writer was doing an episode – one PAD to be precise. I was hooked, and never looked back. Thanks, Peter, for providing the incentive to resample one of the great SF series of them all (nyaaah to you, Sheldon Cooper!)
R.I.P. to Michael O’Hare. As a friend of mine observed, the death rate of B5 actors is way, way, too high.
I’m reminded of an O’Hare story… This was back when all that aired of B5 was the initial pilot and the series was just finally getting the green light. My friends and I were at I-Con that year, and we were in an auditorium watching an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 before they went on to the movie previews. All through it, my (now ex-) wife was annoyed that the head of the guy in front of her would occasionally block her view of the screen, but she didn’t want to say anything and was too stubborn to move. This went on all through the movie previews segment, then the lights came up and they announced that there was a “special guest” in the audience, one that wasn’t in the ‘con program: Michael O’Hare. Yup, you guessed it, HE was the “offending head”. The minute we saw who it was, and as he turned and offered a good-natured wave to the room, our attitudes changed to “Well. That’s all right, then.” 🙂
CSB!
This show was what I watched in lieu of DS9.
R.I.P., Mr O’Hare. Valen watches over us now.
Babylon 5 showed what was wrong with Deep Space 9. On Babylon 5 the station was active 24 hours a day (or however long the day was there). On DS9 all the businesses closed for “the night.” What? How can there be night in space? Why would there even be night on a space station? Travelers would be coming and going all the time. It was stupid whenever they showed that on DS9. It was also interesting that the characters on Babylon 5 grew and changed and were very different by season 4 than they were in season one. The foreshadowing just showed how much thought went into it so that offhand remarks in seasons one and 2 are significant when you see them in reruns and realize what they were hinting at.
I was fortunate to meet and interview Michael O’Hare at I-Con 13, in 1994. I’ll be encoring that interview as a memorial to Michael on Destinies-The Voice of Science Fiction, Friday, October 12th, at 11:30 PM, on 90.1 FM, WUSB, Stony Brook, NY, which also netcasts at http://www.wusb.fm. After the broadcast, the show will be archived at http://www.captphilonline.com.Destinies.html.
I remember going to a Saturday night party at Peter’s house on the weekend of I-Con 13. Michael attended the party, as well. It was the day Bill Mumy’s daughter, Lilliana was born, because he had left a message for Peter. I’ll never forget Michael calling Bill from Peter’s house, and leaving a congratulatory message for him. The reason that stays with me was how deep and rich Michael’s voice was as he left the message. I thought that if Babylon 5 didn’t get renewed (something which was in doubt at the time, and for which Michael button-holed everyone he met at the con, telling them to write to their local station in support of the show), he could have a great career as a voice-over artist.
Speaking of writing letters in support of the show:
I was there at the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind — online on the main non-Internet online service (back when there still was such a thing) known as GEnie, which had “RoundTables” (RTs). JMS (along with PAD and numerous others) was an active participant of the Science Fiction and Fantasy RoundTable (SFRT), which was Page 470 (each RT had its own Page number, which is how one would navigate to it using GEnie’s ASCII-text-only command-line interface).
JMS had announced that he was developing a SF TV series, but could not yet tell us the name of it, so for awhile we called it TWCNBN (“That Which Can Not Be Named”). At the time, each RT had a multi-room Chat area, a Library for sharing files, and a forum that consisted of multiple CATegories (GEnie commands had three letters), each of which had multiple TOPics, each of which could accept posts.
At the time, Star Trek had a CATegory for each of the TV series it had then-to-date (TOS, TNG, and the then-upcoming DS9), as well as Trek movies. Another CATegory was set up for all other “Non-Trek SF TV series.” TWCNBN, later changed to Babylon 5 once JMS could officially announce the name, was assigned TOPic #22 therein.
So, to get to that, you would dial into and log into GEnie, then type:
• “PAG[e] 470” to get to the SFRT, then
• “CAT 18” to get to Non-Trek SF TV Series, then
• “TOP 22” to get to Babylon 5 neé TWCNBN.
At one point, after the name had been announced, JMS posted that things looked dire. It may not happen after all. He wouldn’t go into detail, but apparently there was some dispute involving the then-new (now long-gone) network that threatened to put the kibosh on the whole thing. He asked if we’d be willing to write letters in support of a TV series we had never seen, just based on his word. Most of us agreed wholeheartedly.
Fortunately, the letter-writing campaign never happened, and was never needed. The “suits” or whoever blinked first. The series went on as planned. But JMS was so touched at the support expressed that he asked if there was something he could do in the series to acknowledge it.
I suggested that he set the 3D spatial navigation coordinate system used in the B5 universe up so that the B5 station would be physically located at coordinates 470/18/22. He readily agreed, and added his own touch, and the B5 series bible was amended to read that the station was located in “Grid Epsilon” (for “GEnie”) coordinates 470/18/22.
And now you know why “Grid Epsilon” coordinates were heard often in the Command and Control room on the series, and why they were always near but not at “470/18/22” when referring to some external spacecraft or other object.
Later, B5 expanded well beyond the ability of one mere TOPic to handle it, and even one mere CATegory. By Season Two, it had two whole CATegories devoted to it, with one CATegory consisting of individual TOPics for each episode, and the other consisting of other TOPics as well.
I always liked Sinclair. I found his character thoughtful, considerate, tolerant. A good commander and friend. I thought it was a subtle performance and simply never took to Sheridan in the same way.
On rewatching the series I always feel a little sad at the end of season one at the loss of Sinclair (despite those other two episodes) just as I always do at the end of series two of Blake’s 7. Much as I enjoy what it is still to come, it’s the last appearance of the original crew.
Oh, and I’ve just had the pleasure of getting a friend to finally watch B5. She loved it and it was such fun hearing all her questions and exclamations as the story unfolded.
I’ve tried very recently to watch Babylon 5 and see what the big deal was and it just didn’t click with me I guess
I was not compelled or felt any reason to watch the series beyond the pilot TV movie “The Gathering” and the “In the Beginning” TV movie and after watching those I felt “why should I watch this series?” not “I really want and/or need to watch this series!” that I felt when I saw the new BSG, Caprica, and Farscape. Those were series I couldn’t wait to see the next episode (and in the case of Farscape I’ve only seen the first episode and I REALLY want to see more of it), and personally I find those series better than anything I’ve seen from B5.
Babylon 5 didn’t have a strong start.
Forget the pilot and skip Season One. Start at Season Two, and perhaps you’ll find that “gotta watch this” quality. I certainly did.
I’m not sure how it compares to BSG. I love both series. IMO, BSG had the same problem as LOST. Moments of unsurpassing genius, but suffered from bad planning and a bad ending, so the story meandered a bit and had an unsatisfying ending.
B5 had the moments of genius, but with more regularity than the shows above, and had a stronger ending.
The problem is that you can’t really skip season 1 since you would then be skipping very important information and missing shows that tied directly into later shows (like having Babylon 4 pop back into existence) as well as jumping into it with a security chief in a coma and not seeing who did it or why.
Well, I managed it fine, though in my case it was involuntary. For some reason, the network that broadcasted it in Brazil only and always showed Seasons 2-5.
The few references that I didn’t get, I used the Internet to fill me in.
B5 was actually a lot more straightforward than shows like LOST and BSG. The storyline about Babylon 4 being the exception.
Ok, it’s only on at 7 pm, Monday-Friday; not the weekend?