Babylon 5

Babylon 5 was a pretty good Sci Fi Show. This is a grand space opera with a broad cast of costumed characters fretting away their time on stage. It was canceled, then uncanceled, then had a short lived sequel and recently had a reunion show called Babylon 5-The Lost Tales. I liked the show when it was on, but was never a die hard fan of the series.

The Wife has been watching the DVDs recently, and it is shocking how bad the effects look now-I remember being greatly impressed when Babylon 5 was fired aired because it looked so good. But the stories are still good, often silly and totally over the top, but still good. This was a show with a long story arc-one that spanned the entire series and the occasional changes of cast members.

One of the best features of the DVDs is the commentaries-in which Babylon 5 cast and crew spend each episode rambling aimlessly about what they were doing during the filming, who they liked and didn’t like, how much they smiled or frowned. There is so much laughing and those were the days talk that you wonder if they were paid to do this. There is a lot of talk about the sets and costumes and the countless small and virtually unnoticeable details that were changed and altered and fretted over.

The aliens were always a lot of fun on Babylon 5-the bone head aliens, the Bozo aliens, and the red eyed aliens-not to mention the countless aliens that just wandered in and out for an episode here and there. Then there were all these god-like aliens and that whole Shadow War thing. To be honest I could never keep up with all of it. This was a show that was all bad guys all the times. Even friends often turned out to be bad guys. You just can’t trust a telepath.

Babylon 5 is a good show, even if it does take itself a bit serious from time to time.