Babylon 5 (television series)/Review by o


 * Opinion: very good

I saw the first season about three years ago in college, since a fan had the DVDs and was playing it. About a year later, I got the rest of the series and watched it. I've since watched it all the way through again about a year ago, and watched some episodes more often.

Babylon 5 is a five-season science fiction television series about the crew of an Earth Alliance space station and their involvement in wars between and against other species and their own government. The outline for the entire plot was written before filming of the pilot began, and the plot fits together very nicely, especially after the first season. The first season is less serialized than the rest of the series, but is still very good, with intelligent and interesting stories. As I watched the second to fourth seasons, I was amazed at how well everything came together. The fifth season started off a bit slowly, due to unsureness about whether it would be made, but it again came together very nicely in the second half.

The overall plot is very interesting and nicely written, with some nice plot twists along the way. The same is generally true about the individual episodes, though there are a few duds (The Long Dark and Day of the Dead come to mind). But none of these are essential to the overall story, and thus do not bring down the series as a whole. The characters are also very well written, and generally change a lot over the course of the series. I found myself wanting more when the series ended, and was disappointed at the quality of most of the made-for-TV movies.