On 30 November 2024, I recorded the first of three Doctor Who Literature podcasts I was booked to do after my initial appearance in March 2023. As the trio are in relatively rapid succession—each novelizing a story from one of Sylvester McCoy’s three seasons in the title role—I suggested to host Jason Miller that we record them in the reverse order of publication, River Song-style, with us referring back to things in future episodes.
As I mention in this episode, disappointingly—for me—recorded first, I am wont to take things one step beyond reasonable. (Rrroll that R for the full McCoy.)
Happily, Jason—the other Jason, the one that hosts the show—fulfilled my long-standing desire to meet Jim Sangster, whose work I’ve admired for decades, so I’ll forgive his chonologia…next time.
You can listen to our discussion of Doctor Who: Paradise Towers by Stephen Wyatt on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, and don’t forget to have a look at Jim’s video—featuring the vocals by Antony Owen—that cracked me up just before we started recording.
Welcome to Humanity Is My Business, the online home of the Jason Davis.
If you’ve enjoyed my writing for Creative Screenwriting, Cinescape, or Collider; my work for Babylon 5 Books or with Harlan Ellison; or my books, Writing The X-Files, the Babylon 5 Encyclopedia, or the behind-the-scenes saga of my forthcoming making of Babylon 5 books, I invite you to take a look at my newly launched Patreon account.
I’ve been a freelance writer since 2003, and much of my early work—interviews with writers, including Guillermo Del Toro, Rockne S. O’Bannon, and J. Michael Straczynski; essays on Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and The Godfather; and other oddities I’ve likely forgotten I wrote—has been unavailable for years. I’ll be exhuming a couple of these every month in “It came from the morgue…” at the $5 level.
First up is “Knocking Over the Candy Shoppe”, the essay I wrote for the now-out-of-print Archive edition of The Deadly Streets by Harlan Ellison. You can read the first couple paragraphs here to see if it takes your fancy.
For patrons who join at the $10 level, there’s “Fresh copy!” These are newly written pieces—some based on older works, but completely re-written or expanded by more than 50%, or both—that allow me a creative outlet beyond the aforementioned Babylon 5 project that consumes most of my waking hours.
The initial offering is a 2007 interview with Steven Moffat, discussing his writing for Coupling, Doctor Who, and his then-forthcoming series, Jekyll. A bit of this was published in CS Weekly, the long-defunct online companion to Creative Screenwriting, but it’s more than doubled in length. I went back to the original interview recording and got every bit of writing advice the future Doctor Who showrunner had to offer.
For those who don’t want to go the Patreon route, but appreciate my work and want to offer a digital tip, I’ve also established a Ko-Fi account.
Whether you found me via Creative Screenwriting, Cinescape, Collider, Babylon 5 Books, HarlanEllisonBooks.com, Writing The X-Files, the Harlan Ellison Books or Babylon 5 Preservation Project, Patricia Tallman’s B5 Events, or my Write Your Story workshops, I appreciate you taking time to explore my anarchic little website.
Thank you for your interest.
If you find my work worthy of a contribution via Patreon or Ko-Fi, thank you for the support. It is appreciated more than you know.
“I always wanted to be a writer,” said Steven Moffat, thumbing a goodnight text to his wife—eight hours in our future and headed for bed—into his Blackberry. “There was never a time where I wanted to be anything else. I can’t recall any other ambitions, quite honestly.”
It was Saturday, 17 February 2007, and we were sat in a quiet corridor of the Los Angeles Airport Marriott, the din of a nearby convention underscoring our conversation.
“The very first things I wrote were an adaptation—a very bad one, as you’d expect from a seven-year-old—of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and endless Doctor Who stories. I have the distinction—this year—of writing my own new version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Doctor Who; hurray, I’ve really made progress there.”
To continue reading, please join me on Patreon. Your interest in my work is much appreciated.
Note: This is a preview of “Knocking Over the Candy Store”, my 2,000-word article on Harlan Ellison’s first short story collection, The Deadly Streets, originally published in the now-out-of-print Archive edition of that book. To read the full essay, please join my Patreon account at the $5 “It came from the morgue…” level.
On 5 March 1958, editor Donald A. Wollheim of Ace Book wrote to U.S. Army PFC Harlan Ellison in Elizabethtown, Kentucky about the possibility of purchasing his long-delayed novel, Web of the City, from Lion Books, which was selling off its properties and going out of business. While Pyramid Books would have the honor of publishing Ellison’s first novel—as Rumble (1958), much to the author’s chagrin—Wollheim suggested Ellison assemble a 60,000-word collection of juvenile delinquency stories for publisher A.A. Wyn. Within five days, Ellison’s first book of short fiction, The Deadly Streets, had been assembled and shipped off to New York.
Subtitled “a collection of stories about juvenile delinquency,” only eight of the thirteen tales originally earmarked for inclusion made the final table of contents…
To continue reading, please join me on Patreon. Your interest in my work is much appreciated.
Despite my certainty that Warner Bros. would never finance a high-definition overhaul of Babylon 5 (1993–8), it has happened. The remastered series debuted on HBO Max in early 2021 and was issued on Blu-ray in December 2023. (For my review of the Blu-ray release, please click here.)
As with Babylon 5’s 1998 run on TNT, the 2000 run on Sci Fi, and the DVDs issued between 2002 and 2004, the Blu-rays present the episodes in their original broadcast order. (The only exception is the pilot, which is banished to a bonus disc rather than leading off the set as it should.)
There’s not a lot wrong with the original broadcast order. There are a few instances where it violates the continuity of the narrative, but it is—for the most part—serviceable. It’s not the narrative disasters of Universal’s American Gothic (1995–6) DVD release1 or Fox’s original broadcast of The Chicago Code (2011)2, both semi-serialized series rendered incomprehensible by having their episodes run in random order, but it’s not optimum.
I don’t know how many times I’ve watched Babylon 5 in its entirety. Adding up the two repeat cycles above, at least a half-dozen guided tours for friends I introduced to the series, the DVD releases, three rewatches while I was writing the Babylon 5 Encyclopedia, countless spot checks while editing over twenty titles for B5 Books and the same while I’ve been writing my forthcoming making-of-Babylon 5 books—most of those while taking copious notes—I’m probably closing in on twenty viewings, give or take.
Having spent that much time with Babylon 5—both the show and its production paperwork—I’ve inevitably noticed details that would elude a first-time viewer, and probably most of the viewers who have the luxury of watching the show for entertainment rather than work. (Brought that one on myself.)
In the spirit of Harlan Ellison’s suggested viewing order for The Prisoner (1967–8)—which I’ve followed since that 6 September 1993 Sci-Fi Channel marathon opened my eyes to orders that defy the numbers on the videocassette covers—I humbly offer my suggested viewing order for Babylon 5.
In an effort to avoid spoilers, a simple list—which also supplies each episode’s location on the DVDs and Blu-rays—follows. (If you want to see my rationale for this sequence, please skip to the annotations below.)
* Optional movies and spinoffs. ** Unproduced, script available.
Seq.
Title
DVD
Blu-Ray
Prod. Code
Orig. Trans.
001
The Gathering (Spec. Ed.)
Movie DVD 1
21 / Bonus
N/A
4 Jan 1998
002
Midnight on the Firing Line
Season 1 DVD 1-1
01-01 / Season 1 D1
103
week of 26 Jan 1994
003
Soul Hunter
Season 1 DVD 1-2
01-02 / Season 1 D1
102
w/o 2 Feb 1994
004
Infection
Season 1 DVD 1-4
01-04 / Season 1 D1
101
w/o 16 Feb 1994
005
Born to the Purple
Season 1 DVD 1-3
01-03 / Season 1 D1
104
w/o 9 Feb 1994
006
Believers
Season 1 DVD 3-2
02-04 / Season 1 D2
105
w/o 27 Apr 1994
007
And the Sky Full of Stars
Season 1 DVD 2-4
02-02 / Season 1 D2
106
w/o 16 Mar 1994
008
The War Prayer
Season 1 DVD 2-3
02-01 / Season 1 D2
107
w/o 9 Mar 1994
009
The Parliament of Dreams
Season 1 DVD 2-1
01-05 / Season 1 D1
108
w/o 23 Feb 1994
010
Grail
Season 1 DVD 4-3
03-04 / Season 1 D3
109
w/o 6 July 1994
011
Mind War
Season 1 DVD 2-2
01-06 / Season 1 D1
110
w/o 2 March 1994
012
Survivors
Season 1 DVD 3-3
02-05 / Season 1 D2
111
w/o 4 May 1994
013
DeathWalker
Season 1 DVD 3-1
02-03 / Season 1 D2
113
w/o 20 April 1994
014
By Any Means Necessary
Season 1 DVD 3-4
03-01 / Season 1 D3
114
w/o 11 May 1994
015
Legacies
Season 1 DVD 5-1
03-06 / Season 1 D3
115
w/o 20 July 1994
016
Signs and Portents
Season 1 DVD 4-1
03-02 / Season 1 D3
116
w/o 18 May 1994
017
The Quality of Mercy
Season 1 DVD 6-1
04-04 / Season 1 D4
117
w/o 17 Aug 1994
018
Babylon Squared
Season 1 DVD 5-4
04-03 / Season 1 D4
118
w/o 10 Aug 1994
019
TKO
Season 1 DVD 4-2
03-03 / Season 1 D3
119
w/o 25 May 1994
020
A Voice in the Wilderness Part I
Season 1 DVD 5-2
04-01 / Season 1 D4
120
w/o 27 July 1994
021
A Voice in the Wilderness Part II
Season 1 DVD 5-3
04-02 / Season 1 D4
121
w/o 3 Aug 1994
022
Eyes
Season 1 DVD 4-4
03-05 / Season 1 D3
122
w/o 13 July 1994
023
Chrysalis
Season 1 DVD 6-2
04-05 / Season 1 D4
112
3 Oct 1994 (U.K.)
024
Points of Departure
Season 2 DVD 1-1
05-01 / Season 2 D1
201
w/o 2 Nov 1994
025
Revelations
Season 2 DVD 1-2
05-02 / Season 2 D1
202
w/o 9 Nov 1994
026
The Geometry of Shadows
Season 2 DVD 1-3
05-03 / Season 2 D1
203
w/o 16 Nov 1994
027
A Distant Star
Season 2 DVD 1-4
05-04 / Season 2 D1
204
w/o 23 Nov 1994
028
The Long Dark
Season 2 DVD 2-1
05-05 / Season 2 D1
205
w/o 30 Nov 1994
029
Spider in the Web
Season 2 DVD 2-2
06-01 / Season 2 D2
206
w/o 7 Dec 1994
030
A Race through Dark Places
Season 2 DVD 2-4
06-03 / Season 2 D2
207
w/o 25 Jan 1995
031
Soul Mates
Season 2 DVD 2-3
06-02 / Season 2 D2
208
w/o 14 Dec 1994
032
The Coming of Shadows
Season 2 DVD 3-1
06-04 / Season 2 D2
209
w/o 1 Feb 1995
033
Gropos
Season 2 DVD 3-2
06-05 / Season 2 D2
210
w/o 8 Feb 1995
034
All Alone in the Night
Season 2 DVD 3-3
06-06 / Season 2 D2
211
w/o 15 Feb 1995
035
Acts of Sacrifice
Season 2 DVD 3-4
07-01 / Season 2 D3
212
w/o 22 Feb 1995
036
Hunter, Prey
Season 2 DVD 4-1
07-02 / Season 2 D3
213
w/o 1 Mar 1995
037
And Now for a Word
Season 2 DVD 4-3
07-04 / Season 2 D3
214
w/o 3 May 1995
038
There All the Honor Lies
Season 2 DVD 4-2
07-03 / Season 2 D3
215
w/o 26 Apr 1995
039
Knives
Season 2 DVD 5-1
07-06 / Season 2 D3
216
w/o 17 May 1995
040
In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum
Season 2 DVD 4-4
07-05 / Season 2 D3
217
w/o 10 May 1995
041
Confessions and Lamentations
Season 2 DVD 5-2
08-01 / Season 2 D4
218
w/o 24 May 1995
042
Divided Loyalties
Season 2 DVD 5-3
08-02 / Season 2 D4
220
25 July 1995 (U.K.)
043
The Long, Twilight Struggle
Season 2 DVD 5-4
08-03 / Season 2 D4
219
1 Aug 1995 (U.K.)
044
Comes the Inquisitor
Season 2 DVD 6-1
08-04 / Season 2 D4
221
8 Aug 1995 (U.K.)
045
The Fall of Night
Season 2 DVD 6-1
08-05 / Season 2 D4
222
15 Aug 1995 (U.K.)
046
Matters of Honor
Season 3 DVD 1-1
09-01 / Season 3 D1
301
w/o 6 Nov 1995
047
Convictions
Season 3 DVD 1-2
09-02 / Season 3 D1
302
w/o 13 Nov 1995
048
A Day in the Strife
Season 3 DVD 1-3
09-03 / Season 3 D1
303
w/o 20 Nov 1995
049
Voices of Authority
Season 3 DVD 2-1
09-05 / Season 3 D1
304
w/o 29 Jan 1996
050
Passing through Gethsemane
Season 3 DVD 1-4
09-04 / Season 3 D1
305
w/o 27 Nov 1995
051
Dust to Dust
Season 3 DVD 2-2
10-01 / Season 3 D2
306
w/o 5 Feb 1996
052
Exogenesis
Season 3 DVD 2-3
10-02 / Season 3 D2
307
w/o 12 Feb 1996
053
Messages from Earth
Season 3 DVD 2-4
10-03 / Season 3 D2
308
w/o 19 Feb 1996
054
Point of No Return
Season 3 DVD 3-1
10-04 / Season 3 D2
309
w/o 26 Feb 1996
055
Severed Dreams
Season 3 DVD 3-2
10-05 / Season 3 D2
310
w/o 1 Apr 1996
056
Ceremonies of Light and Dark
Season 3 DVD 3-3
10-06 / Season 3 D2
311
w/o 8 Apr 1996
057
A Late Delivery from Avalon
Season 3 DVD 4-1
11-02 / Season 3 D3
312
w/o 22 Apr 1996
058
Sic Transit Vir
Season 3 DVD 3-4
11-01 / Season 3 D3
313
w/o 15 Apr 1996
059
Ship of Tears
Season 3 DVD 4-2
11-03 / Season 3 D3
314
w/o 29 Apr 1996
060
Interludes and Examinations
Season 3 DVD 4-3
11-04 / Season 3 D3
315
w/o 6 May 1996
061
War Without End Part One
Season 3 DVD 4-4
11-05 / Season 3 D3
316
w/o 13 May 1996
062
War Without End Part Two
Season 3 DVD 5-1
11-06 / Season 3 D3
317
w/o 20 May 1996
063
Walkabout
Season 3 DVD 5-2
12-01 / Season 3 D4
318
18 Aug 1996 (U.K.)
064
Grey 17 Is Missing
Season 3 DVD 5-3
12-02 / Season 3 D4
319
18 Aug 1996 (U.K.)
065
And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place
Season 3 DVD 5-4
12-03 / Season 3 D4
320
8 Sept 1996 (U.K.)
066
Shadow Dancing
Season 3 DVD 6-1
12-04 / Season 3 D4
321
15 Sept 1996 (U.K.)
067
Z’ha’dum
Season 3 DVD 6-2
12-05 / Season 3 D4
322
22 Sept 1996 (U.K.)
068
The Hour of the Wolf
Season 4 DVD 1-1
13-01 / Season 4 D1
401
w/o 4 Nov 1996
069
Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?
Season 4 DVD 1-2
13-02 / Season 4 D1
402
w/o 11 Nov 1996
070
The Summoning
Season 4 DVD 1-3
13-03 / Season 4 D1
403
w/o 18 Nov 1996
071
Falling toward Apotheosis
Season 4 DVD 1-4
13-04 / Season 4 D1
404
w/o 25 Nov 1996
072
The Long Night
Season 4 DVD 2-1
13-05 / Season 4 D1
405
w/o 27 Jan 1997
073
Into the Fire
Season 4 DVD 2-2
14-01 / Season 4 D2
406
w/o 3 Feb 1997
074
Epiphanies
Season 4 DVD 2-3
14-02 / Season 4 D2
407
w/o 10 Feb 1997
075
The Illusion of Truth
Season 4 DVD 2-4
14-03 / Season 4 D2
408
w/o 17 Feb 1997
076
Atonement
Season 4 DVD 3-1
14-04 / Season 4 D2
409
w/o 24 Feb 1997
077
Racing Mars
Season 4 DVD 3-2
14-05 / Season 4 D2
410
w/o 21 Apr 1997
078
Lines of Communication
Season 4 DVD 3-3
14-06 / Season 4 D2
411
w/o 28 Apr 1997
079
Conflicts of Interest
Season 4 DVD 3-4
15-01 / Season 4 D3
412
w/o 5 May 1997
080
Rumors, Bargains, and Lies
Season 4 DVD 4-1
15-02 / Season 4 D3
413
w/o 12 May 1997
081
Moments of Transition
Season 4 DVD 4-2
15-03 / Season 4 D3
414
w/o 19 May 1997
082
No Surrender, No Retreat
Season 4 DVD 4-3
15-04 / Season 4 D3
415
w/o 26 May 1997
083
The Exercise of Vital Powers
Season 4 DVD 4-4
15-05 / Season 4 D3
416
w/o 2 June 1997
084
The Face of the Enemy
Season 4 DVD 5-1
15-06 / Season 4 D3
417
w/o 9 June 1997
085
Intersection in Real Time
Season 4 DVD 5-2
16-01 / Season 4 D4
418
w/o 15 June 1997
086
Between the Darkness and the Light
Season 4 DVD 5-3
16-02 / Season 4 D4
419
w/o 6 Oct 1997
087
Endgame
Season 4 DVD 5-4
16-03 / Season 4 D4
420
w/o 13 Oct 1997
088
Rising Star
Season 4 DVD 6-1
16-04 / Season 4 D4
421
w/o 20 Oct 1997
089
Thirdspace*
Movie DVD 3
N/A
MOW1
19 July 1998
090
In the Beginning*
Movie DVD 2
N/A
MOW2
4 Jan 1998
091
The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
Season 4 DVD 6-2
16-05 / Season 4 D4
501
w/o 27 Oct 1997
092
No Compromises
Season 5 DVD 1-1
17-01 / Season 5 D1
502
21 Jan 1998
093
The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
Season 5 DVD 1-2
17-02 / Season 5 D1
503
28 Jan 1998
094
The Paragon of Animals
Season 5 DVD 1-3
17-03 / Season 5 D1
504
4 Feb 1998
095
A View from the Gallery
Season 5 DVD 1-4
17-04 / Season 5 D1
505
11 Feb 1998
096
Day of the Dead
Season 5 DVD 2-4
18-02 / Season 5 D2
511
11 Mar 1998
097
Learning Curve
Season 5 DVD 2-1
17-05 / Season 5 D1
506
18 Feb 1998
098
Strange Relations
Season 5 DVD 2-2
17-06 / Season 5 D1
507
25 Feb 1998
099
Secrets of the Soul
Season 5 DVD 2-3
18-01 / Season 5 D2
508
4 Mar 1998
100
In the Kingdom of the Blind…
Season 5 DVD 3-1
18-03 / Season 5 D2
509
18 Mar 1998
101
A Tragedy of Telepaths
Season 5 DVD 3-2
18-04 / Season 5 D2
510
25 Mar 1998
102
Phoenix Rising
Season 5 DVD 3-3
18-05 / Season 5 D2
512
1 Apr 1998
103
The Ragged Edge
Season 5 DVD 3-4
19-01 / Season 5 D3
513
8 Apr 1998
104
The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father
Season 5 DVD 4-1
19-02 / Season 5 D3
514
15 Apr 1998
105
Meditations on the Abyss
Season 5 DVD 4-2
19-03 / Season 5 D3
515
27 May 1998
106
Darkness Ascending
Season 5 DVD 4-3
19-04 / Season 5 D3
516
3 June 1998
107
And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
Season 5 DVD 4-4
19-05 / Season 5 D3
517
10 June 1998
108
Movements of Fire and Shadow
Season 5 DVD 5-1
19-06 / Season 5 D3
518
17 June 1998
109
The Fall of Centauri Prime
Season 5 DVD 5-2
20-01 / Season 5 D4
519
28 Oct 1998
110
The Wheel of Fire
Season 5 DVD 5-3
20-02 / Season 5 D4
520
4 Nov 1998
111
Objects in Motion
Season 5 DVD 5-4
20-03 / Season 5 D4
521
11 Nov 1998
112
Objects at Rest
Season 5 DVD 6-1
20-04 / Season 5 D4
522
18 Nov 1998
113
The River of Souls*
Movie DVD 4
N/A
MOW3
8 Nov 1998
114
The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight*
Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers
N/A
N/A
19 Jan 2002
115
A Call to Arms*
Movie DVD 5
N/A
MOW4
3 Jan 1999
116
Crusade: War Zone*
Crusade DVD 1-1
N/A
C 109
9 June 1999
117
Crusade: Ruling from the Tomb*
Crusade DVD 2-2
N/A
C 111
14 July 1999
118
Crusade: The Long Road*
Crusade DVD 1-2
N/A
C 107
16 June 1999
119
Crusade: The Path of Sorrows*
Crusade DVD 1-4
N/A
C 108
30 June 1999
120
Crusade: Appearances and Other Deceits
Crusade DVD 2-4
N/A
C 113
28 July 1999
121
Crusade: Racing the Night*
Crusade DVD 3-1
N/A
C 103
4 Aug 1999
122
Crusade: The Needs of Earth*
Crusade DVD 3-3
N/A
C 101
18 Aug 1999
123
Crusade: The Memory of War*
Crusade DVD 3-2
N/A
C 102
11 Aug 1999
124
Crusade: Visitors from Down the Street*
Crusade DVD 3-4
N/A
C 104
25 Aug 1999
125
Crusade: Each Night I Dream of Home*
Crusade DVD 4
N/A
C 105
1 Sept 1999
126
Crusade: To the Ends of the Earth**
Script published
C 114
127
Crusade: The Rules of the Game*
Crusade DVD 2-3
N/A
C 112
21 July 1999
128
Crusade: Patterns of the Soul*
Crusade DVD 2-1
N/A
C 110
7 July 1999
129
Crusade: The Well of Forever*
Crusade DVD 1-3
N/A
C 106
23 June 1999
130
Crusade: Value Judgments**
Script published
C 115
131
Crusade: Tried and True**
Script published
N/A
132
Crusade: The End of the Line**
Script published
C 116
133
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales*
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales
N/A
N/A
31 July 2007
134
Sleeping in Light
Season 5 DVD 6-2
20-05 / Season 5 D4
422/523
25 Nov 1998
Seq.
Title
DVD
Blu-ray
Prod. Code
Orig. Trans.
* Optional movies and spinoffs. ** Unproduced, script available.
Spoilers follow. You have been warned.
If you were paying attention to the production codes on the list above, you likely noticed that my order—with a few exceptions—follows the sequence in which the episodes were written and filmed.
Why—you may ask—does that order differ from the original broadcast sequence employed by PTEN, TNT, the Sci-Fi Channel, and Warner Bros. (Discovery) Home Entertainment’s DVD and Blu-ray releases?
There are a variety of reasons, and I’ll address each in turn.
The Gathering—Babylon 5’s pilot movie, produced in over twenty days in August and September 1992 and broadcast by PTEN affiliates the week of 22 February 1993—is the starting point. Had it been delivered one cent over budget, that would have been the end of Babylon 5, a one-off movie, much like PTEN’s Island City (1994) pilot the following season.
In 1997, TNT—which had licensed Babylon 5 for strip syndication, commissioned two movies-of-the-week, and ordered a fifth season to conclude the five-year arc—provided funds to re-edit The Gathering. During the original editorial process in late 1992, creator J. Michael Straczynski—an inexperienced producer—had deferred to the judgment of director Richard Compton. Straczynski and series producer John Copeland were dissatisfied with the result and pitched a “special edition” that would re-instate much of the material Compton cut; replace some of Foundation Imaging’s original visual effects work with shots provided by the show’s new cgi vendor, Netter Digital; and replace Stewart Copeland’s score with new music by Christopher Franke, who’d succeeded him on the series. When the revised pilot debuted on 4 January 1998, the titles read:
The 1998 special edition became the default version of The Gathering, though the 1993 original is preserved on a German DVD release. While I wish the original edit was more readily available as a historical milestone in the development of cgi and a case study in how the same footage can yield two very different movies, the special edition is my preferred take on the material.
Babylon 5’s first season premiered almost a year after The Gathering, in January 1994. Because production commenced in July 1993, eleven episodes were completed, allowing for flexibility in broadcast.
As Straczynski wrote in Babylon 5:The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski, Volume 1, “Because we were in a frenzy of construction and recasting and everything was a mess [in the summer of 1993], we knew that our first episode was almost certainly going to be the most problematic, but that we would have things humming along pretty efficiently by the third episode. It was for this reason that ‘Midnight on the Firing Line,’ the first episode aired, was actually the third script produced.”
Though the first three episodes were filmed in the opposite sequence, the writer approached the scripts in the intended broadcast order, as seen below.
103 Midnight on the Firing Line — Story & Teleplay commissioned: 27 April 1993. 102 Soul Hunter — Story & Teleplay commissioned: 3 May 1993. 101 Infection — Story & Teleplay commissioned: 14 May 1993.
Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson), both new to Babylon 5, meet in “Midnight on the Firing Line”.
“Midnight” reintroduced the world and characters, including Lt. Cmdr. Susan Ivanova and Talia Winters, who succeed the pilot’s Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takashima and Lyta Alexander as the station’s executive officer and licensed commercial telepath, respectively. Both are new to the station, as is Amb. Londo Mollari’s diplomatic attaché, Vir Cotto. “Soul Hunter” introduces Dr. Stephen Franklin, who acknowledges his predecessor, Dr. Benjamin Kyle, upon his arrival. Franklin is then central to the action of “Infection”, which features none of the station’s resident aliens—another reason it was filmed first—giving the incoming prosthetics vendor, Optic Nerve, a little extra time to finesse new takes on the characters designed by Criswell Productions for the pilot.
Preceding in production order, we continue:
Delenn (Mira Furlan) welcomes Lennier (Bill Mumy) to Babylon 5 in “The Parliament of Dreams”, the final addition to season one’s cast.
104 Born to the Purple 105 Believers 106 And the Sky, Full of Stars 107 The War Prayer 108 The Parliament of Dreams 109 Grail 110 Mind War 111 Survivors
The original broadcast order for the preceding run of episodes differs considerably from the production sequence. “Believers” and “Grail” were pushed back (tenth and fifteenth, respectively) while “The Parliament of Dreams” and “Mind War” were brought forward in the lineup (as the fifth and sixth episodes).
“‘Mind War’ has come out so well that it looks like we’re going to move it up in the schedule a bit. It was originally slated to run about episode 10 or so, but the studio is so hot on it that it’ll probably run #6, right after ‘Parliament.’”
The appearance of Walter Koenig as Bester in “Mind War” was a promotable event.
What we have here is a case of an external force exerting itself upon the broadcast schedule: Warner Bros. and the producers of Babylon 5 needed the series to succeed, so—having deemed “Mind War” a particularly effective installment—they scheduled it to run as soon as possible. Since Catherine Sakai, a prominent character in the B-plot, was introduced in “The Parliament of Dreams”—another standout show from the first eleven produced—both were brought forward to serve as potentially stronger hooks for the audience than the episodes originally slated for those slots. (I would consider this a strong argument for using the original broadcast order when introducing a new viewer to B5; gripping the audience was a consideration in deviating from the production order.)
So, knowing why an episode might be brought forward, why might one be pushed back?
“When we go in [to editing] with an episode at 10:00, we’re usually out by 6:00, sometimes 7:00. … We were in there for three days working on ‘Grail.’ … The only one that was worse than ‘Grail’ for editing was ‘Believers,’ where we also came up short and we had to shoot a B-story.”
J. Michael Straczynski to Joe Nazzaro, 6 February 1995
The na’ka’leen feeder in “Grail”, a collaboration between Foundation Imaging and Optic Nerve.
Add the difficulties of rendering the first cgi-created creature on television to the already arduous task of editing “Grail” and it becomes clear why that episode reached the screen later than anticipated.
Speaking of cgi, we come to “Chrysalis” (112), the teleplay for which featured the following note from the author on page one: “The following script will be shot as episode #12 in the production schedule, but is intended to be aired as #22, the last episode of the season, which will be a cliffhanger.”
Once again, auctorial intent in contrast to the vicissitudes of making tv provide us with a digression from the production order, so we continue season one thus:
“Nothing’s the same anymore.” Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) and Catherine Sakai (Julia Nickson) in “Chrysalis”.
113 DeathWalker 114 By Any Means Necessary 115 Legacies 116 Signs and Portents 117 The Quality of Mercy 118 Babylon Squared 119 TKO 120 A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I 121 A Voice in the Wilderness, Part II 122 Eyes 112 Chrysalis
Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) watches Delenn (Mira Furlan) begin work on the chrysalis device in “Legacies”.
One thing that becomes immediately evident when viewing the series in this sequence is that Delenn’s chrysalis device makes its debut in “Legacies” (115), in which only the lowest tier is featured on the table in her front room. (“Legacies” also features the first reference to Delenn’s upcoming transformation when Alisa Beldon tells Commander Sinclair what she “heard” in the ambassador’s mind.)
“Signs and Portents” (116)—originally aired two months before “Legacies”—shows that work on the device has continued, with Delenn assembling the second tier as Mr. Morden interviews her.
Morden (Ed Wasser) with Delenn (Mira Furlan) in “Signs and Portents”.Delenn (Mira Furlan) received the triluminary in “Babylon Squared”.
Delenn receives the final component of the device—the Triluminary—from a member of the Grey Council in “Babylon Squared” (118), completing the logical progression.
Delenn (Mira Furlan) and Lennier (Bill Mumy) in her bedroom in “Chrysalis”.
“But!” I hear you say, “Why isn’t the chrysalis device present when Delenn entertains Draal in her quarters during “A Voice in the Wilderness” Part I?
“Ha!” I say to you, in a strangely combative fashion. “Once it was finished, Delenn moved it to the bedroom, where it is located in ‘Chrysalis’! Perfectly logical, since one would obviously want to metamorphose in one’s bedroom…or maybe, I dunno, the bathroom?”
It’s also worth noting that John the Starfury pilot flies under Ivanova in Delta Wing during the events of “Signs and Portents” (116), then dies as Alpha Seven in the teaser for “Babylon Squared” (118). Ivanova notes that John “just turned thirty” when Franklin states he’s died of old age, indicating she knew him well enough to know his birthday. The episodes were originally broadcast in the opposite order.John the Starfury pilot in “Signs and Portents” and “Babylon Squared”, about to die.
John the Starfury pilot in “Signs and Portents”……and “Babylon Squared”, about to die of old age.
Delenn (Mira Furlan) is one of many Babylon 5 inhabitants to find their roles altered in the early second season.
201 Points of Departure 202 Revelations 203 The Geometry of Shadows 204 A Distant Star 205 The Long Dark 206 A Spider in the Web
A divergence occurs, with two episodes swapped—
207 A Race through Dark Places 208 Soul Mates
—for reasons related to PTEN’s scheduling and post-production:
“…originally, ‘Soul Mates’ was to air after ‘Race.’ At that time, PTEN was initially going to show just 6 new episodes, and we would have come in after the rerun break with ‘Race,’ then ‘Soul.’ When the ratings came in and looked good, they didn’t want to interfere with the growth, and indicated they wanted to show 7 new eps in the first batch. ‘Race,’ as you can see, was a very complex episode visually, and the only way to get it ready to run #7 in the first batch would’ve been to compromise the integrity of the show, and we simply won’t do that for any reason. ‘Soul Mates,” on the other hand, required very little in the way of post production, so that was moved forward into the #7 slot.”
Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) in an awkward toast from “The Coming of Shadows”.
Things continue with:
209 The Coming of Shadows 210 Gropos 211 All Alone in the Night 212 Acts of Sacrifice 213 Hunter, Prey
And then…things get messy again. We have a mystery:
214 And Now for a Word 215 There All the Honor Lies
ISN’s Cynthia Torqueman (Kim Zimmer) in “And Now for a Word”.
Thus far, I’ve not found any explanation for why these two episodes were swapped in broadcast order. As originally screened, “There All the Honor Lies” was the first show to air after seven weeks of repeats, so it’s possible that “Honor” moved ahead of “And Now for a Word” in an effort to start the new episodes with a more conventional story, the ISN documentary being an off-format entry in the B5 œuvre. It’s also possible that the cgi was to blame…which is definitely the case when we get to:
216 Knives 217 In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum
This is one of the rare cases where a minor bit of narrative continuity was upset by a heavier than usual cgi burden disrupting the intended sequence.
The Icarus is established in Sheridan’s hallucination in “Knives”……before playing a significant narrative role in “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum”.
“…the chronological order was supposed to be ‘Knives, then ‘[In the Shadow of] Z’ha’dum.’ In ‘Knives’ you get the reminder about Anna [Sheridan], then in ‘Z’ha’dum’ you get the payoff…there was so much CGI work and rotoscope work and creature animation involved in ‘Knives’ that it got flopped to second in that order. So while it works best the way it was intended, it still works okay in this order.”
The newly returned Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman) pleads her case to Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), Franklin (Richard Biggs), Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Ivanova (Claudia Christian) in “Divided Loyalties”, the only second season episode purposefully produced out of sequence.
218 Confessions and Lamentations 220 Divided Loyalties 219 The Long, Twilight Struggle
Whoa! Those last two were not in production order! What gives?
Before we tackle the production sequence, allow me to present dialogue-based evidence that “Divided Loyalties” was intended to be screened before “The Long, Twilight Struggle”.
In “Divided Loyalties”, Delenn admits to Sheridan that “In preparing to come here, I was not taught the more…colorful parts of your language.” A discussion of the word “butt” follows, and Sheridan concludes “Abso-fraggin-lutely.” In “The Long, Twilight Struggle”, Delenn deploys Sheridan’s “Abso-fragging-lutely” and adds a “damnit” for good measure. She then explains: “Since our last discussion, I have been studying your use of language. So you approve?”
We can conclude from this exchange that the episodes were aired in the correct order, and I suspect the out-of-sequence production was for some logistical reason. Most likely, Patricia Tallman—who returned as Lyta Alexander in “Divided Loyalties”—was booked for stunt work on another project.
“Abso-fragging-lutely” established in “Divided Loyalties”……and reprised in “The Long, Twilight Struggle”.
Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) introduces himself to Delenn (Mira Furlan) and Lennier (Bill Mumy) in “Matters of Honor”.
221 Comes the Inquisitor 222 The Fall of Night 301 Matters of Honor 302 Convictions 303 A Day in the Strife
One again, cgi (and consideration of the ratings sweeps) resulted in two episodes being swapped on original broadcast:
304 Voices of Authority 305 Passing through Gethsemane
To add a little context, “Gethsemane” was transmitted the week of 30 November 1995 and “Voices” made its debut on 1 February 1996, so the swap provided a lot of breathing room to get the cgi finished.
“We’re finishing the last EFX shots on ‘Voices of Authority,’ episode #4, which will air after episode #5, ‘Passing Through Gethsemane’ because the latter requires almost zip EFX, and is a better cap to the November sweeps.”
Zack Allan (Jeff Conaway), pictured with Babylon 5’s Night Watch rep (Vaughn Armstrong), started with a couple lines in “Spider in the Web” and had his own narrative by “Point of No Return”.
306 Dust to Dust 307 Exogenesis 308 Messages from Earth 309 Point of No Return 310 Severed Dreams 311 Ceremonies of Light and Dark
The following swap is the last deviation from broadcast order until season five:
312 A Late Delivery from Avalon 313 Sic Transit Vir
This time, we have three reasons for the exchange:
“‘Avalon’ and ‘Vir’ were reversed in order to a) finish effects on ‘Avalon,’ and b) to give a lighter episode after ‘Ceremonies’ (also to hold [Michael] York for sweeps).”
Vir Cotto (Stephen Furst) and Lyndisty (Carmen Thomas) lighten the mood in “Sic Transit Vir”.
We have the old standards cgi and promotional reasons, plus—and this is an interesting one—a matter of tonal relief. While contemporary technical and promotional considerations can easily be discounted when considering the viewing order, the issue of emotional impact could be a good argument to leave these two episodes in their transmission order rather than restoring them to production order; your mileage may vary.
The rest of season three proceeds as originally aired. The same goes for the whole of year four, produced and transmitted in the same order…until the very end.
The last three episodes of the third season counted down to “Z’ha’dum”, where Anna Sheridan (Melissa Gilbert) confronted her husband, John (Bruce Boxleitner).
314 Ship of Tears 315 Interludes and Examinations 316 War Without End, Part One 317 War Without End, Part Two 318 Walkabout 319 Grey 17 Is Missing 320 And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place 321 Shadow Dancing 322 Z’ha’dum 401 The Hour of the Wolf 402 Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi? 403 The Summoning 404 Falling toward Apotheosis
Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) would spend much of the season as an agent of William Edgars on Mars.
405 The Long Night 406 Into the Fire 407 Epiphanies 408 The Illusion of Truth 409 Atonement 410 Racing Mars 411 Lines of Communication 412 Conflicts of Interest 413 Rumors, Bargains, and Lies 414 Moments of Transition 415 No Surrender, No Retreat 416 The Exercise of Vital Powers 417 The Face of the Enemy 418 Intersections in Real Time 419 Between the Darkness and the Light 420 Endgame 421 Rising Stars
Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) in “Sleeping in Light”.
As has been frequently mentioned by J. Michael Straczynski, Warner Bros. ordered the Babylon 5 story to be wrapped up in season four due to the demise of PTEN, the consortium of television stations that broadcast the series for the first three years of its existence. Thus, the final episode produced for season four was “Sleeping in Light” (422), the series finale.
Then, after “Sleeping in Light” had been filmed in April 1997, executive producer Douglas Netter managed an eleventh-hour reprieve and secured a fifth season to be screened by the basic-cable channel TNT, a corporate sibling following Turner Broadcasting’s merger with Warner Bros. For once, PTEN’s bizarre notion of withholding the final four or five episodes of each season to be shown as preamble to the season premiere—thus negating the value of the year-ending cliffhangers by resolving them seven days later—worked in Straczynski’s favor, allowing him to create a new season four finale, “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” (501) to replace “Sleeping in Light”, which would be shelved until the end of the fifth season, where it was originally intended to be placed, had their been no studio/network shenanigans to contend with.
Zack Allan (Jeff Conaway) wasn’t originally in Thirdspace, but his addition to the movie resulted in a memorable scene with Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman).
Now—in what is a potentially controversial opinion—I recommend viewing the movies-of-the-week (MOWs) Thirdspace (MOW1) and In the Beginning (MOW2) between seasons four and five. Both stories are told in flashback, the former narrated by Sheridan from some time after the Earth Alliance Civil War and the latter recounted by Mollari from between the scenes of the flash-forward featured in “War Without End” Part Two (317).
Some folks advocate wedging Thirdspace into its chronological position, yet another subject for debate, given that the action takes place between scenes in “Atonement” (409), which makes for an awkward viewing experience and disregards the fact that the story is narrated in past-tense by Sheridan. Placing Thirdspace at the end of season four works nicely.
Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) narrated the long-ago events of In the Beginning to Luc Deradi (Jacob Chase), Senna Refa (Yasemin Baytok), and Lyssa Deradi (Erica Mer).
In the Beginning unquestionably takes place in 2278, between the events of “Objects at Rest” (522) and “Sleeping in Light” (422). It unarguably features spoilers for “And the Sky, Full of Stars” (106), “Revelations” (202), “A Late Delivery from Avalon” (312), “War Without End” Part Two (317), and “Atonement” (409). It does not deal explicitly with any plot points established in season five, which makes sense since it—and Thirdspace—were produced immediately after season four.
Once again, I base my placement on Straczynski’s intent in writing the two movies, which were designed to introduce successive runs of repeats on TNT. The two MOWs were commissioned over a year before Netter’s wheeling&dealing yielded a fifth year of the series and were explicitly intended to be promotable events to bring viewers to TNT for its daily B5 reruns.
And now, I shall somewhat undermine my own argument with the words of the writer:
“When I sat down to write ‘In the Beginning,’ my feeling was that I should look at the long term. Would the hole in Sinclair’s mind be the same mystery it was in season one, or would it be kind of known thereafter? If so, then do you want to play with the mystery, or set up what actually happened? I figured, okay, let’s go for the latter…let’s let the audience know (which will mostly know by now anyway), and set up the background, with the characters not knowing the first season. I took basic Greek tragedy as my model, with ‘In the Beginning’ functioning more or less as a Greek chorus that sets things up.
“If you want to play it as a strict mystery, then no, probably don’t go near ‘In the Beginning’…but frankly, if I were going to start someone off on B5, I’d definitely want to start with ‘In the Beginning,’ which sort of skims in and out of the overall storyline in a beautiful fashion.”
Never let it be said that I don’t present all the evidence, whether it backs me up or not.
Elizabeth Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) assumes command of Babylon 5 in “No Compromises”.
Since “Deconstruction” (501) replaced “Sleeping” (422) in season four, all of season five’s production codes are offset, relative to their broadcast sequence.
502 No Compromised 503 The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari 504 The Paragon of Animals 505 A View from the Gallery 511 Day of the Dead
Now, we come to a bit of strangeness.
When Neil Gaiman was contracted to write “Day of the Dead” in August 1997, Straczynski sent him the as-yet unaired episodes of season four and the first four scripts for the fifth year, the episodes Straczynski had written at a break-neck pace to get ahead of the last-minute renewal.
Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) spends the “Day of the Dead” with Adira Tyree (Fabiana Udenio).
Thus, Gaiman was writing his episode based on the status quo as it appeared in “A View from the Gallery” (505). When you consider that Mollari and G’Kar leave the station in “Strange Relations” (507) and return from Centauri Prime in “The Ragged Edge” (513), and that the telepaths—whom Lochley claims Garibaldi considers responsible for the events in “Day of the Dead”—are no longer on the station after “Phoenix Rising” (512), Gaiman’s episode must sit between “No Compromises” (502)—when the telepaths arrive—and “Strange Relations” (507)—when Mollari and G’Kar leave for Centauri Prime. Knowing which scripts Gaiman reviewed prior to writing allows the episode’s ideal location to be determined.
Since we’re on the subject, freelance scripts typically take longer to turn around than in-house teleplays, so that’s why “Day of the Dead” was scheduled to be shot as 511, half way through the season’s production schedule. Interestingly, the episode was pulled forward in the broadcast schedule, just not far enough, as the creator explains:
“We suggested moving up [‘Day of the Dead’] because the NBA playoffs will hit after #12, and better to have 3–4 intense episodes in a row, culminating in 12, than to break up the middle, which would’ve been okay as a respite if there wasn’t going to be a break, but since there is a break now, I want to slam the last few before it hits for more impact.”
G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) spent much of the fifth season on Centauri Prime. Also pictured: Vitari (Neil Hunt).
506 Learning Curve 507 Strange Relations 508 Secrets of the Soul 509 In the Kingdom of the Blind… 510 A Tragedy of Telepaths 512 Phoenix Rising 513 The Ragged Edge 514 The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father 515 Meditations on the Abyss 516 Darkness Ascending 517 And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder 518 Movements of Fire and Shadow 519 The Fall of Centauri Prime 520 The Wheel of Fire 521 Objects in Motion 522 Objects at Rest
Sarah Cantrell (Myriam Sirois) and David Martel (Dylan Neal) in The Legend of the Rangers, the second Babylon 5 spinoff, though set chronologically before the first, Crusade.
My preference is to slip The River of Souls (MOW3), A Call to Arms (MOW4), Crusade, The Legend of the Rangers, and The Lost Tales in between “Objects at Rest” (522) and “Sleeping in Light” (422) since they fall between those episodes in the history of the B5 universe and—more importantly to me—it feels like 19 years elapses between 2262 and 2281 if you watch the shows thus.
MOW3 The River of Souls The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight MOW4 A Call to Arms
Crusade complicates matters due to TNT’s interference and eventual cancellation of the series after thirteen of the contracted twenty-two episodes were produced.
108 War Zone 111 Ruling from the Tomb 107 The Long Road 109 The Path of Sorrows 113 Appearances and Other Deceits
Sarah Chambers (Marjean Holden), Dureena Nafeel (Carrie Dobro), Matthew Gideon (Gary Cole), and John Matheson (Daniel Dae Kim) in “War Zone”, an episode produced in an effort to ameliorate TNT’s concerns regarding Crusade.
The sequence begins, as it must, with “War Zone” (108), wherein the crew of the Excalibur assembles. “Ruling from the Tomb” (111), which features the first meeting of Gideon and Lochley, is placed second, which is consistent with the urgency of assembling a large conference and Gideon’s assertion that if there was a saboteur aboard his ship, it would have been blown up “weeks ago.” This also allows an exit for the character of Trace Miller, who only appears in two episodes, due to TNT souring on the character and dropping actor Alex Mendoza’s option for the “back nine” episodes. “The Long Road” (107) takes place approximately two months after the Drakh plague was released on Earth. “The Path of Sorrows” (109) is placed fourth in the sequence because it establishes the mysteries of the Cerberus and Apocalypse Box, both of which will become prominent in the following episodes. It also ends with Galen departing the Excalibur. “Appearances and Other Deceits” (113) comes fifth to transition the crew into the gray-and-red uniforms.
John Matheson (Daniel Dae Kim), Dureena Nafeel (Carrie Dobro), and Matthew Gideon (Gary Cole) in “Racing the Night”, which was originally planned to open Crusade.
103 Racing the Night 101 The Needs of Earth 102 The Memory of War 104 Visitors From Down the Street 105 Each Night I Dream of Home
To do as little damage as possible to Straczynski’s original intent, the next five episodes proceed in their originally intended sequence: “Racing the Night” (103), “The Needs of Earth” (101), “The Memory of War” (102) [which must precede “Patterns of the Soul” (110), due to the virus shield’s creation], “Visitors From Down the Street” (104) [which must precede “The Well of Forever” (106) and Mr. Jones’s accusation that Matheson has had unauthorized telepathic contact] and “Each Night I Dream of Home” (105) [which necessarily takes place after “Ruling from the Tomb” but before “The Rules of the Game” (112)].
Galen (Peter Woodward) plots a course for “The Well of Forever”.
114 To the Ends of the Earth (Unfilmed, the script was published in CRUSADE: What the Hell Happened? Vol. 3.) 112 The Rules of the Game 110 Patterns of the Soul 106 The Well of Forever 115 Value Judgments (Unfilmed, the script was published in CRUSADE: Other Voices, Vol. 2.)
The unfilmed “To the Ends of the Earth” (114) transitions back to the black uniforms and develops the Cerberus storyline set up in “Path” and alluded to in “The Needs of Earth.” Once again, the story ends with Galen departing the Excalibur, providing a good opportunity to sequence the crew’s much-needed shore leave at Babylon 5 in “The Rules of the Game.” The added benefit of this placement is that Lorka 7 provides a promising destination for the Excalibur crew, which can then be undercut by General Thompson’s orders to divert to Theta 49 in “Patterns of the Soul,” where Dr. Chambers’s virus shield gets its first test. Galen then returns to hijack the ship—possibly fulfilling the Apocalypse Box’s warning to Gideon in “The Memory of War”—and lead the crew to “The Well of Forever.” Once again, ideal contrast is provided by placing Matheson’s trial by Mr. Jones—the successor to the Psi Corps—in “Well” immediately before his encounter with Bester—the last vestige of the Corps—in the unfilmed “Value Judgments” (115).
118 Tried and True (Unfilmed, the script was published in CRUSADE: Other Voices, Vol. 2.) 116 The End of the Line (Unfilmed, the script was published in CRUSADE: What the Hell Happened? Vol. 3.)
The rest of the season would proceed as Straczynski noted in his files: the unwritten “Darkness of the Soul” (117)—possibly the story in which Galen would have discovered Gideon’s Apocalypse Box; “Tried and True” (118)—in which Dureena was reunited with her mentor; an untitled Straczynski-written and directed episode (122)—a “surreal/unusual episode” wherein a “construction base [would be] found”; the written-on-spec “War Story” (119)—wherein Dureena would have been kidnapped; the partially outlined “The Walls of Hell” (121)—in which Gideon and company would have searched for their missing comrade; an untitled Straczynski-written episode (120)—in which Dureena would have returned, boasting forbidden technology; “The End of the Line” (116)—the unproduced season-one finale; and “Little Bugs Have Lesser Bugs” (2XX)—the Peter Woodward-scripted season-two orphan that calls into question the resolution to year one’s cliffhanger.
John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) in “Sleeping in Light”, filmed at the conclusion of season four, but shelved for a year when TNT ordered a fifth season.
Babylon 5: The Lost Tales 422/523 Sleeping in Light
Jan Schroeder, my advisor on the Babylon 5 Preservation Project, considers my practice to be a heresy of the highest order. She feels the emotional impact of “Objects at Rest” (522) and “Sleeping in Light” (422) is heightened by viewing them back-to-back; I’m 180 degrees from her on that point, but—as I said above—I always try to make room for the opposition.
If this article has entertained or offered food for thought, I have Ko-Fi for digital tips and Patreon, where you can find some of my other work. Contributions from Babylon 5 fans like you fund my ongoing Babylon 5 research and publishing work.
Much appreciated, JASON DAVIS, Writer THE MAKING OF BABYLON 5
Originally published as the 21 and 28 February 2020 installments of the Babylon 5 Preservation Project weekly briefing, this piece has been substantially revised and expanded.
Babylon 5 is on Blu-ray. Sometimes, you just have to say it out loud—or type it—to believe it.
Released two days before my birthday on Tuesday, 5 December 2023, I’ve been contemplating a review of this twenty-one disc set for nearly a year.
Succinctly, this is the best Babylon 5 has ever looked and sounded on home video.
Before I elaborate, though, I must warn you about a related matter.
Caveat emptor!
It has been brought to my attention that on 15 October 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment—because the name wasn’t enough of a mouthful before the merger—has reissued Babylon 5 on DVD in packaging resembling last year’s Blu-ray release.
Photos by Eric Regalado.
Given the presence of “Commentaries, Featurettes, Additional Scenes, Gag Reels and More”, this is a repackaging of the DVDs originally issued between 2002 and 2004.
The fact that WBDHE has omitted the 16:9 aspect ratio from the specifications while using packaging associated—for nearly a year—with the new 4:3 high-definition transfers treads very close to false advertising.
Do not buy these DVDs thinking that you are getting new masters in standard definition.
Back to the Blu-rays, by way of preamble:
On 29 March 2022, Warner Bros. Archive released a Blu-ray of The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). This movie is an extraordinary technical achievement, one of only two narrative movies produced for the original three-projector Cinerama format.1 The Blu-ray features a Smilebox presentation which does a splendid job of replicating the 146-degree curvature of the Cinerama screen, and can be a vertiginous experience as carriages clatter along mountainside roads in the Alps.
While the other movie of this kind, How the West Was Won (1962), was relatively well-preserved, Grimm was in a sorry state, necessitating a nearly prohibitive amount of restoration. Harrison Engle covered the rehabilitation of the film in a forty-minute documentary called “Rescuing a Fantasy Classic”, following the nine negatives—a yellow, cyan, and magenta master for each of the three Cinerama cameras—to Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging, on the other side of Burbank from where I’m typing these very words. There, each frame of the film was scanned…alongside Babylon 5, visible several times throughout the documentary on the next machine over.
The Grimm restoration took eighteen months after the scans were made. No one at WBMPI was wearing a mask, so it seems the Grimm and Babylon 5 scans were being done in 2019, with work on the latter completed in 2020 for debut on HBO Max in January 2021.
When Babylon 5 debuted on the streaming service, a number of errors were reported to HBO Max, including the omission of the tag from “Babylon Squared” (118). These were addressed as they were noted, with corrected masters appearing throughout the early days of Babylon 5’s tenure on the streaming service.
I suspect this was Warner Bros. crowdsourcing quality control.
The Content
When the captions were remade for seasons two and three of Babylon 5 on DVD, a different font was used. This has been remedied for the Blu-rays, with the correct version of Serpentine employed on all the episodes, for the credits and any on-screen legends.
The incorrect font (left) and the correct font (right), from the season 3 and 4 DVDs, respectively.
All the variations in the opening titles are intact:
• “Born to the Purple” (104) features Mary Woronov as Ko D’ath rather than Caitlin Brown as Na’Toth.
• “Points of Departure” (201) and “Revelations” (202) feature Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova and a full-Minbari Delenn.
• “The Geometry of Shadows” (203) replaces Delenn’s full-Minbari look with the new half-human appearance after it’s been revealed in “Revelations” (202).
• “Points of Departure” (201), “Revelations” (202), and “The Geometry of Shadows” (203) feature the original mix of Bruce Boxleitner’s opening narration, which was remixed and retimed on 8 November 1994, the improved version debuting on “A Distant Star” (204).
• “A Distant Star” (204) drops lieutenant from Ivanova’s rank, acknowledging her promotion in “The Geometry of Shadows” (203).
• “The Long Dark” (205) adds lieutenant to Warren Keffer, acknowledging his promotion in “A Distant Star” (204). According to a deleted scene, Keffer was a lieutenant (junior grade) prior to his promotion, but this was not reflected in the credits for the first four episodes.
• “The Illusion of Truth” (408) drops security chief from Michael Garibaldi following his resignation in “Epiphanies” (407) and transfers the title to the newly appointed Zack Allan.
• “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars” (501) correctly omits Claudia Christian’s credit, replacing it with a shot of the Agamemnon emerging from the explosion of the orbital platform. (This was necessitated by Christian’s appearance in “Sleeping in Light” [422], which “Deconstruction” replaced. Contractually, she could only appear in twenty-two episodes, so the title sequence was altered to accommodate the situation.)
• As with the remix of Boxleitner’s opening narration in season two, the season five opening titles were remixed from “Strange Relations” (507). The original mix has been retained for “No Compromises” (502) through “Learning Curve” (506).
• “The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father” (514) features the Psi Corps logo and “Trust the Corps” instead of the Babylon 5 logo at the beginning of the credits, with the Babylon 5 shield and logo added to the “Created by J. Michael Straczynski” text at the sequence’s conclusion.
There were a few idiosyncrasies in the first season’s running order on HBO Max, but the Blu-rays present the episodes in their original broadcast order, five or six episodes per disc. (Technically, there is one exception, which I’ll deal with in the supplemental section.)
The strangest element of this Blu-ray release is the retention of the bumper.
When Babylon 5 was originally broadcast, the commercial break between acts one and two was 4:34, to accommodate local commercials sold by the PTEN affiliate and national advertising sold by Warner Bros. These two blocks were separated by a five-second Babylon 5 logo with a Christopher Franke fanfare, a reminder that you still had a few minutes to get something from the kitchen before the show resumed.
This bumper was technically part of the program, and would be on the D-1 or DigiBeta masters. Such elements are almost universally omitted from home video releases, but WBDHE has opted to retain them for these Blu-rays. It’s an unusual decision, but not an unprecedented one. The bumpers change each season, reflecting the tone of the theme music. They’re not weird or witty like the ones retained for home video releases of Twin Peaks (1990–1) or Moonlighting (1985–9), but they’re not doing any damage to the narrative; there’s already a commercial break, so they’re just…there. Weird, but harmless.
Of more concern is an error that must have gone unnoticed on HBO Max.
Near the conclusion of “Endgame” (420), Maggie Egan’s ISN Reporter makes her post-President Clark reappearance to detail Captain Sheridan’s rescue of the planet from the president’s attempted scorched-earth policy. During the news broadcast, the camera pans to the right of Egan, but the ISN graphic detailing the fleet’s firefight in Earthspace fails to appear.2
The DVD features a graphic over Maggie Egan’s left shoulder that was omitted from the Blu-ray release.
It’s a minor error in the grand scheme of things, so much so that I pulled out the DVDs to confirm I wasn’t mistaken.
Despite this error, these Blu-rays remain my preferred method of revisiting Babylon 5. Whoever produced them knew what they were doing and cared about the series.
I wrote to co-producer George Johnsen—who oversaw post-production for the first four seasons—detailing what I’d noticed, explaining my understanding of how the Blu-rays would have been produced given what he’d told me previously, and he outlined three possible ways the error could have occurred, all depending on different factors resulting from the 1997 finishing of the episode.
While the glitch is frustrating, it’s an imperfect world, and the best we can hope for is to strive for perfection in the knowledge that it lies outside our reach, ever upon the horizon. (I say that as the guy who’s haunted by every factual error and typo that crept into a B5 Books publication or Edgeworks Abbey offering issued between 2009 and 2021. Every last one of them pains me, because I know how many times they must have slipped past me in the proofing stages. I must have watched every feature and commentary and subtitle track on the Babylon 5 Cast Reunions three-Blu-ray and four-DVD sets a dozen times each!)
Thanks to John Hudgens for the screengrab.
Alas, one broadcast error that could have been fixed but was not is the spelling of Raghesh 3. In the script for “Midnight on the Firing Line” (103), Straczynski spelled the name of the Centauri agricultural colony with two H’s.
Though the prop department included the first H for Universe Today’s “Narn Settle Raghesh 3 Controversy” headline, as seen in “And the Sky Full of Stars” (106), post-production omitted the letter when composing the caption for the opening shot of the debut episode.
The Picture
Before I put my weight on this particular landmine, I want to be absolutely clear about the fact that I am fully in favor of productions being presented in their original aspect ratio. When the Sci-Fi Channel ran a letterboxed presentation of Star Wars (1977) circa 1993, and I saw the shot of Han Solo in the Mos Eisley Cantina framed by his boot, I was sold.
By 1994, I had an expensive LaserDisc habit, and it’s probably been thirty years since I’ve seen a widescreen movie panned&scanned for 4:3 television broadcast.
When I worked at Best Buy in 1997, I expended hours explaining the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen to the early adopters of DVD. I was the Saint Paul of widescreen cinema, writing letters of support to the studios and proselytizing like my life depended on it. (Technically, my enjoyment of movies did depend on it. With DVD banging the last nail in LaserDisc’s coffin, I really needed widescreen to win that little format war.)
Despite the producers’ forward-thinking intentions, Babylon 5 was designed and produced for the 4:3 aspect ratio common to television at the time of its creation.
But I wasn’t there, so I asked John C. Flinn, III ASC, the director of photography for all five seasons of the series.
Davis: Were your compositions were designed for the 4:3 image as far as you’re concerned?
Flinn: Yeah.
The director of photography said he composed Babylon 5 for 4:3, but we must also attend to what he said next.
Flinn: I always like to protect anything I’m looking at.
Image from Wikipedia.org.
Babylon 5 was shot on Super 35 film, using three perforations per frame, the red outline below. Thus the exposed negative was 24.89 mm by 13.995 mm, yielding an aspect ratio of 16:9.
This is not the smoking gun it might seem to be.
Because a film is shot in a particular aspect ratio, that does not mean it’s meant to be exhibited in that format. Following the market pentration of television, studio executives sought to lure audiences back to theaters with vistas impossible on the 4:3 screen at home. Cinerama—as mentioned above—Todd A-O, and CinemaScope presented aspect ratios of 70:27, 11:5; and 13:5, respectively, but not every movie could afford those expensive processes. The majority of widescreen movies were shot on standard 35 mm film at the 4:3 aspect ratio. Then they were exhibited in widescreen—effectively 16:9—by use of a matte fitted into the projector to block off the top and bottom for the 4:3 frame.
Effectively, the directors of photography were composing their shots according to guidelines in their eyepieces that indicated the 16:9 horizontal band in the middle of the 4:3 frame that was intended for the audience to see. (With the advent of home video, the full frame of 35 mm film would be exported to videocassette, sometimes revealing elements of the image that were never intended to be seen by the viewer. In some cases, this might be nudity avoided to secure a PG-13 rating or special effects apparatus that would have been matted out of the theatrical exhibition.)
When Flinn said he was “protecting” the frame, he means he was keeping anything extraneous out of the 16:9 frame, but he also said “we had sidelines” in reference to marks indicating the left and right edges of the 4:3 frame in the eyepiece.
Flinn composed his pictures for 4:3 so all the visual information necessary to follow the story is contained within that frame, but he kept the sides of the 16:9 frame clear of anything that shouldn’t be on screen. Everything outside that 4:3 frame is superfluous.
A 16:9 Buffy the Vampire Slayer image captured and annotated by @BeerStix.
If you’ve seen the 16:9 masters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer—where crew and equipment are frequently seen just outside the intended 4:3 frame—you can appreciate how much care Flinn took to keep a clean frame.3
That said, Flinn’s ability to protect the image ended when the negatives were shipped to LaserPacific to be developed.
Sometimes, in post-production, an editor “steals” a shot. If, for example, the producers want to cut away from President Susanna Luchenko’s speech at the press conference to see Captain Sheridan’s reaction to what’s being said, but director Tony Dow didn’t shoot any coverage of Sheridan while Luchenko was talking. In a situation like this, an editor like Skip Robinson might grab a shot of Sheridan listening to Delenn, who followed Luchenko at the podium.
That works in 4:3—which is what the editors were working with on the Avid—but becomes problematic in 16:9, when you can see Luchenko sitting next to Sheridan while he’s watching her talk on the other side of the room.
We cut from this shot of Luchenko at the podium to……this shot of Luchenko sitting next to Sheridan. In 4:3, continuity is preserved; in 16:9, not so much.
As noted above, WB MPI scanned the film anew for this restoration. I’m pretty sure they used a wet gate, which immerses the film in a liquid that matches the refractive index of the emulsion, eliminating the numerous scratches that particularly marred the first-season episodes on DVD.
The material filmed on the sound stages at Babylonian Productions looks beautiful. The 1990s was an extraordinary decade for cinematography on television, and every time a series originally finished on videotape at standard resolution gets an HD restoration, it’s a revelation. Details of the costumes and sets you’ve missed for thirty years are suddenly drawing the eye. The makeups by Optic Nerve stand up beautifully to the new possibilities for scrutiny. This Blu-ray release is probably a bit like emerging from successful cataract surgery, seeing the familiar in a whole new light.
The comp-shots remain the weakest part of the show. Those blends of filmed reality and computer trickery are condemned to the standard definition of the D-1 and DigiBeta tapes to which they were originally exported, but whatever process was used to upscale them did a fine job. Yes, you can predict the firing of a ppg by the sudden downgrading of picture quality, but this restoration has significantly reduced the jarring effect those transitions had on DVD, where the resolution of the comp shots was compromised by roughly 50% due to the crop-and-fill approach to that material. The comp-shots on the Blu-ray resemble dissolves or wipes in a theatrical motion picture, where generation loss due to the optical-printing process created a brief dip in resolution until the effect has passed. Scenes with special effects always had that slight softening of quality in the pre-cgi era, before filmmakers were able to tidy up after their tricks in the digital domain.
I recently learned that, when possible, restoration artists working on studio movies with access to the original film elements rebuild dissolves digitally, eliminating the generation loss inherent in the original conformed negative for the films in question. This has been done for Babylon 5, so transitions where one live-action scene dissolves into another don’t even suffer the slight dip in quality a theatrically projected movie of the 1980s would have exhibited.
The scenes of fully computer-generated imagery have also been well-served by the upscaling process. The twenty-five- to thirty-year-old work of Foundation Imaging and Netter Digital will never be as nuanced as modern cgi, but now that it’s presented with its composition intact and its resolution uncompromised by the 16:9 zoomed-in framing of the DVD, you can properly appreciate what the pioneers who created it accomplished at the outset of the series, as well as the extraordinary progress they made in those five years.
The last thing I want to note is the color correction. I confirmed with editor David W. Foster that Babylon 5’s color correction was carried out digitally, the last stage of post before delivering the shows to Warner Bros. By going back to the negatives, WBMPI personnel had to perform color correction on the live-action material without reference to the original post-production notes.
Foster pointed out that scenes cutting between live-action and comp-shots betrayed the lack of proper color correction on the newly scanned film footage. It wasn’t distracting, but it was very evident if you watched for it. This was not corrected between HBO Max and the Blu-ray release.
Foster provided these screengrabs from HBO Max. On the left, we have a comp shot with its original 1995 color correction, while the right-hand image is the 2020 scan from the negative with newly performed color correction.
For completion’s sake, I should note one more thing about the video. (This will get technical, so feel free to skip to The Sound.)
Film is shot at twenty-four frames-per-second (fps). That’s twenty-four pictures every second to fool your eyes into perceiving a moving image.
Due to household electrical current—60 Hz in the Americas and 50 Hz everywhere else—television was designed to work to those standards. In the U.S., television runs at 30 fps, each frame composed of two alternating fields for a total of sixty half-images per second; this format is called NTSC for the National Television System Committee that adopted it.4 In the U.K., television runs at 25 fps, each frame composed of two alternating fields for a total of fifty half-images per second; this format is called PAL for Phase Alternating Line, which is a technical description. (There’re variations of both formats, not to mention SECAM, as used in France, but that’s getting too technical for me.)
Twentieth century televisions—cathode ray tubes—depended on an electron gun to “draw” each image on the phosphor dots behind the screen. With 525 or 625 lines to make up each image, depending on where you live, the gun couldn’t manage an entire frame every second. Each frame was broken into two fields, consisting of odd or even lines of the picture. This is why NTSC and PAL are interlaced formats; the electron gun draws one field every 1/60th or 1/50th of a second, filling in the other field in the subsequent interval.
Because of these television standards, 24 fps film footage—each frame a discrete image, now called a progressive frame—couldn’t be presented on television without adaptation. Not only would the speed of images need to be adjusted for the electrical standards, but each progressive frame would have to become two interlaced fields.
For countries using PAL, the fix was simple. The 24 fps video was played back at 25 fps, shortening the run time and raising the pitch of the audio by 4%.5 For country’s employing NTSC, the remedy was a process called 3:2 pull-down that involved repeating certain frames achieve the “correct” playback speed. If you’ve ever noticed jerky motion in a movie on 1990s television when a camera slowly pans left to right across a landscape, you’ve witnessed 3:2 pull-down in action.
For me, the greatest boon of the Blu-ray format—and 120–240 Hz refresh rates on high-definition monitors—was not lossless audio or even the higher resolution, but the ability to see movies in their native frame rate.
When you watch Babylon 5 on Blu-ray, you are not seeing the video processed in post-production for NTSC or PAL, but the actual frames captured on the film, at 24 fps, the frame rate established at the advent of sound film in the 1920s. I appreciate that one could argue that we’re back to where this section began—a question of what was filmed and how it was meant to be exhibited—but I will argue that John Flinn was composing for 4:3 and he was seeing 24 fps in his viewfinder.
The cgi was also provided in 24 fps and underwent 3:2 pull-down for integration with the live-action material. That said, I have noticed one visual effects-oriented oddity. Near the beginning of the season two title sequence, there is a composite shot of the two-level bazaar. I am almost certain that shot was created in NTSC and has been converted to 24 fps, causing stuttering motion that is effectively the reverse of 3:2 pull-down.
The Sound
I have previously written that Babylon 5 was originally mixed in Dolby Surround, a four-channel format supporting left, center, right, and monaural surround channels encoded into a stereo signal for broadcast in the 1990s. I also wrote that this Dolby Surround mix was reformatted to Dolby Digital 5.1—splitting the monaural surround into left surround and right surround and adding a low-frequency effects channel—the .1—to enhance the bass for the 2002–4 DVD releases.
George Johnsen told me that is not the case.
Babylon 5 was originally mixed with 5.1 channels. It was then down-mixed to Dolby Surround for broadcast, so the DVDs should have debuted the never-before-heard 5.1 mix.
As with the image, the DVDs failed to accurately present the sound of the series. The center channel—where much of the dialogue is anchored—was mastered substantially louder on the DVD than the other four channels, such that the three-dimensional soundscape of the original mix was inaudible without radically adjusting your sound system.
This is the 5.1 mix of “Gropos” (210), as presented on the DVD. Note that the center channel (blue) has a much higher amplitude or volume, relative to the other channels.This is how the 5.1 mix should look, with all five channels and the low-frequence effects channel hitting the same peaks in amplitude. Thanks to Brandon Klassen for these images, which confirmed in 2016 what I’d believed for a decade and a half.
For the Blu-ray, the channels have been balanced in amplitude/volume. The Zócalo once again sounds like it’s filled with people—indistinct walla surrounding the viewer and “overhead” announcements booming out of the side and back speakers—the oppressive ever-present THRUM of DownBelow is back, and the ships whizz past your ears on their way to the back of your room.
The only audio edit I’ve noted is the omission of the “Babylon 5 is produced by Babylonian Productions, Inc., and is distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution” voiceovers from the end of all the first season episodes (read by George Johnsen) and the first nine episodes of season two (read by conceptual consultant Harlan Ellison).
In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor issue, but—for obvious reasons—the loss of Harlan’s voice made me a little sad. I’m now wondering why the voiceover was dropped after “The Coming of Shadows” (209). Presumably, it was a change in policy at Warner Bros.
The Supplements
All the supplemental material produced for the DVDs is missing, even the audio commentaries and episodic promos. Given the era in which the original supplements were produced, it’s unlikely that any of the documentaries were made in HD, so they wouldn’t have taken much real estate on the discs. I suspect they all would have fit alongside the set’s only “bonus” feature…
I find it difficult to consider Babylon 5’s pilot, The Gathering, a bonus feature, tucked away on the last disc in the set, all by itself. It is the beginning of Babylon 5, an integral part of the series, and should not be treated as an afterthought.
The Gathering was the only installment of Babylon 5 that was correctly rendered on DVD. Director of photography Billy Dickson composed it for the 4:3 aspect ratio of the era and it was presented thus on both the initial 2001 Babylon 5 DVD release—where it was paired with In the Beginning—and on the 2004 Movie Collection that followed the fifth season.
For this Blu-ray release, The Gathering, the one installment of Babylon 5 which was never—at any point—intended to be in exhibited in 16:9 has been presented in that aspect ratio.6
Neither has the pilot movie been restored. This may be due to the loss of various elements in the Warner Bros. vaults that was discovered when the Special Edition was prepared for TNT in 1997. Still, the 4:3 master used for the DVD release should have been upscaled in a similar fashion to the comp shots in the series, resulting in an accurate, as-good-as-it-gets presentation.
The TNT Special Edition has—for the most part—been the default edit of The Gathering since it premiered on 4 January 1998. The original 1993 PTEN version has had a few home video releases—a Japanese LaserDisc, on VHS as the first installment of Columbia House’s subscription service for the series, and is still available on the German DVD release. My thanks to John Joshua for providing this link to the only extant 1993 version of the pilot available for those interested at procuring a copy. He notes that “They want the standard version, not the UK import.”
Given that the special edition occupies only ninety-four minutes on the bonus Blu-ray, it would have been nice to see both versions of the pilot movie presented. If WBDHE can package five edits of Blade Runner (1982) in one Blu-ray set, two cuts of the Babylon 5 pilot could be preserved for posterity, especially as many of Foundation Imaging’s pioneering effects7 were replaced by Netter Digital’s work for the later version.
The Special Edition of The Gathering remains available on DVD in The Movie Collection, where it is accompanied by the four TNT movies-of-the week, none of which have been remastered or issued on Blu-ray.
The Presentation
If you thought the array of supplemental features underwhelming, let’s talk about the packaging. Leaving aside my personal prejudice about extraneous cardboard slipcases that feature the same artwork and information as the trapsheet inside the plastic case—what is the point of showing me the same picture in two places and killing a tree to do so?!!!!—the framework upon which the Blu-rays are stored is a fascinating work of engineering. As someone on Facebook pointed out, the discs fit on the hubs so tightly that you risk snapping them in half when you want to watch one, yet a few in every set manage to break free in transit. Indeed, my framework arrived in pieces, seemingly jostled apart en route. (As with all problematic packaging, I have re-homed my discs for future ease of access.)
The cover artwork—simultaneously lacking the eponymous space station and featuring an engagement between an Earthforce Omega-class destroyer and Shadow vessels that never happened in the series—is not something I’m going to expend any energy upon. I did find it odd that the back of the slipcover features what appear to be individual season sets with the original—and very elegant, I’ve always thought—DVD covers upon them. I suspect they’ll be along over the next year or so, making me wish I’d waited…but would season sets have happened if the complete series didn’t sell well? Catch-22.
The inside of the trapsheet is also worthy of condemnation. It lists all the episodes of each season. It doesn’t indicate which episode of a given season is on which specific disc, nor do the discs themselves feature any information beyond season and disc number. As noted above, each disc has five or six episodes, so the eleventh episode of a season could be on either the second or third disc of that season. It’s a trivial complaint, solved by noting how many episodes are on each disc as you watch through, but it’s nonetheless frustrating that whoever designed the trapsheet didn’t think to make it useful.
If you click this link, you’ll be taken to my suggested viewing order for Babylon 5 and its spinoffs. It’s based on watching the series way too many times and your mileage may vary, but, in updating my list, I also inventoried the DVD and Blu-ray releases for your convenience.
In mapping the discs, I’ve noted that the there’s no prevailing pattern of which episodes are on which disc across the five seasons. I hope the bandwidth of each episode was assessed prior to authoring and that the disc allocations were based on giving each episode the most sympathetic encoding possible.
As has been the case for all WBDHE releases in recent years, the Blu-ray menus are static images—the dubious cover art—and the most basic of interfaces, offering PLAY ALL, EPISODES (with a sub-menu to select them), AUDIO (redundant, given only one option), and SUBTITLES. While I was never keen on elaborate DVD menus with animated sequences that made a saga of getting from the main feature to supplementary materials8, this is the opposite extreme. At least there are no spoilers ambushing the viewer in video loops on the menu screens.
The discs are authored such that if you select a given episode, playback will continue through succeeding episodes on the disc without returning to the menu.
The only audio option is a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track sampled at a standard 48 kilohertz. I sampled a few acoustically active scenes in down-mixed stereo and the experience was satisfactory. When I interviewed George Johnsen, he noted that though each episode was mixed in 5.1, every show was played back in Dolby Surround, stereo, and mono during the quality-control portion of post-production, to insure that viewers at both ends of the sound system spectrum—and those in between—would hear everything they needed to for the enjoyment of the series.
Subtitles are available in English only. I sampled a few scenes and found the text to be more accurate than those of the DVDs. I noted one omission and one elision during “In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum” (217), neither of them detrimental to the scenes in question. There are instances of inconsequential walla being subtitled, so I suspect the abridgments were due to rapidly delivered dialogue; both were Garibaldi, and Jerry Doyle could deliver a lot of dialogue in a short amount of time. The name of the Icarus was even italicized, for the punctuation pedants like me.
The Blu-rays played in both my Region A and Region B machines, suggesting the same disc masters were used for all the Blu-ray releases worldwide.
The Conclusion
As I wrote at the outset, this is the best Babylon 5 has ever looked and sounded on home video.
With the exception of The Gathering—which has been banished to the bonus disc in an aspect ratio it was neither composed nor protected for—the episodes look and sound the best they’ve ever done. All the episode-specific idiosyncrasies that might trip up an uninformed home video producer have been correctly dealt with, and—as far as I’ve noticed—only one brief effects shot was missed. (Should I note further errors as I watch through while fact-checking my book, I’ll add them to the appropriate section.)
The product as whole doesn’t make a great first impression, the packaging being simultaneously annoying and uninspired while the extant DVD supplements are absent for no readily apparent reason. Would it be great to have a good-looking package loaded with extra features? Yes, but there’s something to say for the show itself presented at its best and allowed to speak for itself.
If you’ve read all of the foregoing, I thank you for valuing my appraisal.
Despite its length, this is not a detailed review. I’ve yet to make my through the series on Blu-ray. I’ve been too busy writing about how it was made. If I note anything else as I make my way though—checking my work, as it were—I will add to this document with some sort of flag to identify the addition.
If this review has compelled you to purchase Babylon 5 on Blu-ray, may I request that you use one of the Amazon links below, which will earn me a 2.5% commission on the sale that will fund my ongoing Babylon 5 research and publishing work:
The development of Cinerama and other widescreen formats plays a significant role in the origins of Babylon 5 that I look forward to sharing with you. ↩︎
After each episode of Babylon 5 was edited electronically, the negative was cut to conform to those edits. For cgi or comp shots, a piece of black film was spliced into the reel to identify sections that only existed on standard-definition videotape. The camera motion in the shot makes it clear that an ISN graphic is intended to be added, but I suspect the shot wasn’t flagged as a comp shot in the offline edit, the low-resolution computer-based edit. Thus, that section of film was cut into the conformed negative during the online edit—which executes, by cutting the original camera negative, the decisions made during the offline session—and the shot was replaced on the DigiBeta master videotape downstream.
Twenty years later, when the conformed negative was scanned by WB MPI, that shot would have been intact on the reel and the editors working on the project wouldn’t have been cued to retrieve the missing material—with the cgi graphic—from the master videotape.
For years, I’ve seen this image of key grip Rick Stribling lurking at the right-hand edge of this frame from “Babylon Squared” (118):
I do not know where it originated. You can only just make out his toolbelt in the bottom right-hand corner on the DVD a few frames later:
I can only assume the image with Stribling came from a master briefly used on some streaming service or other, but the two images give you a sense of the left/right flexibility of the Super 35 frame. ↩︎
Engineers often call NTSC “Never Twice the Same Color” because it was designed to be backward-compatible with black&white transmissions and was thus compromised from its advent. ↩︎
The 110 episodes of Babylon 5 are approximately three hours and seven minutes shorter when viewed on PAL DVDs. ↩︎
The Gatheringwas presented in 16:9 once before. When Sci Fi debuted Babylon 5 in 2000, the channel’s principle selling point was the new widescreen transfers, so the marketing personnel were confronted with the awkward fact that their widescreen broadcast of the series commenced with a pilot that wasn’t in widescreen. I feel for the folks faced with that situation and while their solution—cropping The Gathering to 16:9—was not a good idea, it was probably the only one that made sense at the time. ↩︎
Foundation co-founder Ron Thornton’s on-camera cameo was also cut from the special edition, though his face is still visible on a monitor illustrating the changeling net’s capacities; it would be nice to have the man and his original work preserved, though. (That’s Rob Sherwood of Criswell Productions sitting with him.) ↩︎
Approximately three million years of my life were spent navigating the Red Dwarf DVD menus. ↩︎
Note: This is a living document and will be periodically updated with my commentary on the remaining titles.
I have an astonishing number of prejudices when it comes to titles.
I realized this three years into writing a book about the television series Babylon 5. I’d planned to title the book All Alone in the Night: The Making of Babylon 5. The subtitle is self-explanatory. The title came from the show’s opening narration, describing the denizens of the eponymous space station and their habitat thus:
“Humans and aliens wrapped in two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night.”
That phrase would remain part of season two’s saga sell and become the title of the twelfth episode.
The more I thought on it, the more it seemed lazy to name a book on Babylon 5 after an episode of the series itself, even as evocative a title as “All Alone in the Night”. I’d been trying to convey the fact that the show was produced in an industrial park far from a studio lot. It was made in isolation, the cast and crew forming a family in the converted warehouse wherein a plywood space station had been erected.
I’ve been thinking about the title problem for over a year now, and I’ve finally come up with something. I have a title for my Babylon 5 book. It will be revealed soon, but a byproduct of burning brain cells on this conundrum has been a good sense of what I do and don’t like when it comes to titles.
Thus, this article on my title prejudices.
I don’t like character’s names as titles: Michael Clayton (2007); Jane Eyre: An Autobiography (1847); The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (ca. 1600); Sherlock (2010–7); or Jessica Jones (2015–9).
The exception to this prejudice would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003), which uses the collision of the protagonist’s name and calling to convey tone in exactly the way Léon Morin, prêtre (1961) doesn’t.
I don’t like placenames as titles: Abbey Road (1969); Astro City (1995–); Casino Royale (1953); Paris, Texas (1984); or Twin Peaks (1990–2, 2017). This prejudice includes Babylon 5 (1993–8), and no, I don’t know what I would have titled it, but I would have gone slowly insane trying to come up with something that wasn’t the setting.
For the record, a metaphysical setting is cool, like The Razor’s Edge (1944) or In a Lonely Place (1947).
The first edition of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, obscuring—to my consternation—whether its title is 1984 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. At least we can be certain it’s a novel.
I don’t like timeframes as titles…unless the author is George Orwell.
Years are the temporal equivalent of places as titles, and just as lazy, if not moreso. This addition is brought to your courtesy of Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone (2018–) prequels, 1883 (2021–2) and 1923 (2022–), the latter of which was originally announced as 1932. (This titling conceit becomes particularly annoying with respect to my obsession with dating television shows to head-off future ambiguity, thank you network executives averse to new ideas.) (A further as-yet-unproduced spinoff is titled 6666, which is the name of a ranch, like Yellowstone, but looks like a year, albeit more than halfway to the era of Dune [1965].)
Yes, and I’ve made the list much longer so it looks like I’m being kind and reasonable instead of capricious and arbitrary:
Common Sense (1776) Thomas Paine’s title for his pamphlet arguing for American independence from the British crown makes the reader an ally of the cause. If you believe the title, you’re in agreement with the content.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) Mary Shelley’s title falls foul of my prejudice, but her subtitle overcomes my objection by characterizing the eponymous scientist’s creation as a life-giving (or life-given) tool that has the potential to destroy mankind.
Sherlock Holmes and John Watson made their debuts in the 1887 edition of Beeton’s Christmas Annual.
A Study in Scarlet (1887) “I shall have him, doctor—I’ll lay you two to one that I have him. I must thank you for it all. I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across; a study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon? ‘There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colorless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”
Our Mr. Holmes has a poetic bent, it seems.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) Ambrose Bierce’s title walks the line. “An Occurrence” does not inspire and “Owl Creek Bridge” is a tedious placename, but tie them together and there’s a very satisfying snap!
“The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) This is a tricky one. I’m not sure if I find the title of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story compelling in its own right…or because reading it pasted the eponymous paper in the darkest corner of my mind. Whether or not the title works, you must read the story, recently published alongside an earlier draft in the Library of America’s Gilman volume.
“Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses” (1895) Mark Twain does not bury the lede in his witty criticism of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. You could argue that he’s already marching you down the path with a title that insists rather than suggests.
Im Westen Nichts Neues (1928) Though “Nothing New in the West” would be a more accurate rendering of Erich Maria Remarque’s title, A. W. Wheen’s 1929 English translation, All Quiet on the Western Front, became synonymous with the stagnation and boredom endured by World War I soldiers in the trenches and was retained by translator Brian Murdoch in 1993.
“Knock” (1948) Fredric Brown tells a concise tale with the first two sentences of this story, well-served by its terse title, and goes on to elaborate the conceit as only a master of the short-short story can.
The Crucible (1953) Arthur Miller’s play is one of those exceptions, where titling it “The ________” works because the second word creates a mental image going into the play that metamorphoses into metaphor as you watch the drama unfold.
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) Ray Bradbury’s novel is allegedly named for the temperature at which paper burns—apropos for a story set in a society where fireman burn houses to destroy books—but has anyone ever checked the science? (Or can we not check the science because there are no more books?)
Waiting for Godot (1953) Samuel Beckett’s title established expectations that his play has no intention of paying off.
“Free Dirt” (1955) A perfectly prosaic title for one of Charles Beaumont’s perverse parables.
“Flowers for Algernon” (1959) The elegiac title of Daniel Keyes’s short story—and later novel—is perfect. Astonishingly, so is the title of the 1968 film adaptation, CHARLY, which can’t quite be rendered correctly for this annotated account.
“All of Us Are Dying” (1961) George Clayton Johnson’s short story observes a universal truth that takes on a more specific meaning for his story’s protagonist.
Seconds (1963) David Ely’s novel—and the 1966 film adaptation—confounded me by opting for the less-common definition of the word; it’s not an increment of time, but rather a second helping…but not of food. Brilliant.
Designed by Bernard Lodge.
Doctor Who (1963–89, 1996, 2005–) The title posed a question in 1963, that still hasn’t been answered, sixty-one years later.
Dune (1965) Originally serialized as Dune World (1963–4) and Prophet of Dune (1965) in Analog, Frank Herbert’s eco-political opus defies my prejudices by titling the novel after the apposite nickname for the blighted planet Arrakis, where much of the book takes place.
“‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” (1965) The title of Harlan Ellison’s short story illustrates his belief that “a cleverly constructed long title plants sufficient key words in a reader’s mind that, even if it’s delivered incorrectly, enough remains to make the point.” In this case, it also sets the tenor for this tale of civil disobedience and both identified and characterizes the protagonist and antagonist.
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966) Joyce Carol Oates posed the question, and you’ll have to read her story—or watch the equally unsettling and well-titled movie, Smooth Talk (1986)—to learn the answer.
At Last the 1948 Show (1967–9) The years of broadcast deliver the title’s punchline, but you’ll have to track down the surviving episodes of this U.K. series starring John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Marty Feldman, and the lovely Aimi MacDonald for the rest of the laughs.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) If you can think of a better title for Philip K. Dick’s meditation on sentience in a world peopled with humans who prove their empathy by expressing feelings for artificial animals while a slave class of androids are killed in pursuit of the same aspiration, I’d love to hear it. (Blade Runner, the 1982 movie adapted from the book, takes its title from an unrelated work by another writer…because it fit better on a marquee.)
The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula K. Le Guin juxtaposed a tool for shaping raw materials with the realm of deities for her novel of a man who can reshape reality. Exquisite.
Are You Being Served? (1972–85) Named for the salutation offered by the employees of the Grace Bros. department store in London, this television series created by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd is a satire on customer service that rarely cares about the answer to the question and only when it comes to making commission.
Aladdin Sane (1973) David Bowie’s album title is a pun; get it?
“The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” (1973)
The Tomorrow People (1973–9) Stan Lee missed a trick when titled his 1963 Jack Kirby collaboration The X-Men. Roger Price’s televised take on Homo Superior—with a nod to David Bowie’s “Oh! You Pretty Things” (1971)—is the perfect title for a tale of the next rung of the evolutionary ladder.
All the Lies That Are My Life (1980) Harlan Ellison’s novella bears the perfect title for what appears to be a roman à clef masquerading as whole-cloth fiction in the guise of a fictionalized autobiography…or something like that.
St. Elsewhere (1982–8) Created by Joshua Brand & John Falsey, and developed by Mark Tinker & John Masius, the title of this MTM Enterprises television series comments upon the setting’s status as an underfunded and overlooked teaching hospital.
Brazil (1985) This might appear to violate Prejudice #2, but—as the tagline tells us—“It’s just a state of mind.” Had Terry Gilliam not been able to licence Arry Barroso’s 1939 song “Aquarela do Brasil”, I suspect the original title 1984½ would have remained, and I think it would have bypassed Prejudice #3 on the grounds of satire.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) For her dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood looked to the fourteenth century for her title and the twenty-first century for her scenario.
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) Douglas Adams devised the title for his second Dirk Gently novel in the first chapter of Life, the Universe, and Everything (1983), but it so perfectly encapsulates a sort of banal ennui that belies the content of this book.
In•Vision (1988–2003) “In-vision” is a term in television that refers to the image being transmitted. It was the perfect title for the Doctor Who fanzine formerly known as An Adventure in Space and Time (1980–8), though a pedant might argue its coverage of scripts and scenes that didn’t see broadcast might belie the letter of the title, if not its spirit. See also The Frame (1987–93).
Alien Nation (1988) Rockne S. O’Bannon’s title for a movie about an extraterrestrial slave race being abandoned on Earth and having to integrate with human society is a stroke of genius. Who says puns are the lowest form of humor?
“Cat-Flap” (1989) This was the working title for Rona Munro’s first contribution to Doctor Who, which was also the last program broadcast during the 1963–89 run of the series. It alludes to the idea that your pet pussy cat might not be the only thing to avail itself of the unguarded entrance to your home. The show was broadcast as “Survival”, intentionally playing on the Darwinian themes in the story but inadvertently commenting on the status of the series. “Cat-Flap” was wittier.
Press Gang (1989–93) Steven Moffat’s television series about a group of volunteer students and delinquents on the verge of expulsion being forced together on a school newspaper may have the single best title in the history of television.
“The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore” (1991)
“Why Should I Cry for You?” (1991)
Breakfast at Czar’s (1992–5)
Joking Apart (1993–95) Steven Moffat calls his autobiographical sitcom about a bitter comedy writer whose wife is leaving him the “first ever feel-bad comedy” and the title refers to the protagonists propensity to use jokes as a weapon when the situation calls for an absence of punchlines.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) The title of Richard Curtis’s screenplay is an accurate description of the movie based upon it. It creates expectations the story screws around with.
Nothing at the End of the Lane (1999–) “The Magazine of Doctor Who Research and Restoration” is edited by Richard Bignell and takes its name from the earliest (unused) title for the debut episode of the television series in question.
“Slayday” (1999) By all rights, I should probably cede this slot to Donald E. Westlake, who wrote Slayground under his Richard Stark pseudonym in 1969. Still, I can’t help highlighting the one clever title I came up with, when—in happier times—I conceived a federal holiday devoted to population control and venting homicidal rages.
Låt den rätte komma in (2004) John Ajvide Lindqvist’s first published novel takes it’s title from Morrissey’s “Let the Right One Slip In”, the B-side to his 1992 single “Tomorrow”. Indeed, the lyrics are quoted and properly attributed on the title page to Part Five of the novel, which makes the English title—Let Me In—all the more frustrating. I have no idea if the English title was the publisher’s doing or that of translator Ebba Segerberg. The latter’s work is not to my taste, repeatedly expelling me from the story’s spell; do yourself a favor and watch the 2008 movie instead.
Män som hatar kvinnor (2005) The first of Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published novels was titled Men Who Hate Women. English translations have been published as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. If you’ve read the book or seen the movie adaptations, you know the original title is the accurate one, marketing concerns be damned.
Breaking Bad (2008–13) Creator Vince Gilligan has claimed in various interviews that the title of his series—which chronicles a high school chemistry teacher’s evolution into a crime lord—is a southern colloquialism for when a law-abiding citizen wanders off the straight and narrow. I searched Harlan Ellison’s Dictionary of American English on multiple occasions and never found any evidence of the saying. It’s either very obscure, or a superb forgery.
Changeling (2008) J. Michael Straczynski dramatized the 1928 disappearance of Walter Collins from Los Angeles and his mother Christine’s never-ending search for him. The title refers both to an incident in the movie and the structure of Straczynski’s screenplay, wherein a single woman’s obsession alters the society around her. I will say no more; see the movie.
Vworp Vworp! (2010–) Another Doctor Who fanzine of extraordinary quality, Vworp Vworp! takes its title from the onomatopoeiac rendering of the TARDIS materialization sound in tie-in comicstrips, which are the subject of the publication.
“You know that sound the TARDIS makes?” said the Moment. “That wheezing groaning. That sound brings hope wherever it goes.”
“Make Good Art” (2012) Neil Gaiman’s 17 May 2012 commencement speech from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia can be found in his 2016 non-fiction collection, A View from the Cheap Seats. It is one of the best essays on the art life ever written, and its title is both refrain and command.
“Sassenach” (2014) This is the title of the first episode of the television series based on Diana Gabaldon’s debut novel, Outlander (1991). “Sassenach” is an often pejorative word used by the Gaelic inhabitants of the British Isles to refer to the English inhabitants—outlanders—and I maintain it would have been a better title for the book, televison series, and franchise that concerns an English woman being cast back in time to 1740s Scotland.
Trigger Warning (2015) Neil Gaiman titled his 2015 short story collection Trigger Warnings—in reference to content warnings intended to protect an audience from potentially disturbing material—and used his introduction to debate whether fiction should be a safe space for the reader. The essay is worth the price of admission.
The Run-Out Groove (2017) This is the title of the second of Andrew Cartmel’s Vinyl Detective novels, and a personal favorite. Each novel in the series has taken its title from a music-related concept—Written in Dead Wax (2016), Victory Disc (2018), Flip Back (2019), Low Action (2020), Attack and Decay (2022), Noise Floor (2024), and Underscore (2025)—that Cartmel has deftly woven into the narrative. As of 2022, each volume has bettered the previous one and I recommend the books without reservation.
To be fair, I love all the movies, books, stories, comics, albums, etc. enumerated above, but I crave a complexity to a title, or—given Seconds—an ambiguity that makes the reader wrestle with it.
Whatever the case, naming a book on the making of Babylon 5 after an episode now seems lazy to me.
On 20 July 2024, I joined Jason Miller of the Doctor Who Literature podcast for episode #119 to discuss Donald Cotton’s novelisation of the 1964 Doctor Who serial commonly called “The Romans”. You can listen on Apple, Spotify or YouTube.