Babylon 5: The Gathering

[brother vinny]

[Since I only sporadically watched Babylon 5 when it aired, I will accede to the wisdom of HerodionRomulus and hold off on watching "In the Beginning," which appears on the flipside of "The Gathering" DVD, until after viewing third season.

Oh, and be warned: spoilers ahead.]

It's the dawn of the third age of mankind, and the Earth Alliance has built in neutral space a station intended to serve as an interstellar UN. Babylon 5 is, as its name suggests, the fifth in a line of space stations dedicated to this purpose; Babylons 1 thru 3 were sabotaged and destroyed, and Babylon 4 disappeared without a trace. Gathered here are representatives of three of the four major alien governments (the Minbari, the Narn, and the Centauri), with the fourth, a Vorlon named Kosh, due to arrive in a couple of days. The Earth Alliance is represented by Babylon 5's crew, especially her commander, Jeffrey Sinclair, who spends the dwindling time before the Vorlon ambassador's arrival to find out what he can about the enigmatic Vorlon people.

But the Vorlon ambassodor arrives ahead of schedule, and within minutes, an attempt is made on the ambassador's life. Someone's tried to off Kosh, b'gosh! Everyone has an alibi, including Commander Sinclair (who we saw stuck in an elevator tube during the time in question), only Sinclair's alibi isn't corroborated by computer records. Worse yet, when visiting telepath Lyta Alexander uses her power to probe Kosh's mind, she sees Sinclair poisoning the Vorlon!

Much investigation later (and I know I'm leaving a ton of stuff out-- I'll trust our "resident Vorlon" to fill in the important stuff I leave out), we learn that the real would-be assassin is someone using a forbidden piece of technology called a changeling net, which allows the user to change appearance at will. Sinclair tracks the assassin down, and it is discovered that the assassin is a Minbari. We later find out that he is of a warrior caste of Minbari who have been in exile since the Earth-Minbari war.

Again, I'm leaving out a lot of stuff here, most importantly the tension between the different races on Babylon 5. The Centauri and the Narn are ancient enemies, the former having subjected the latter to capitivity some time in the past. As hinted at, the Minbari were once at war with Humans (Commander Sinclair played a pivotal role in the final battle of that war, we learn).

When I first tried watching Babylon 5 (back when it originally aired), I was off-put by the obviousness of the CGI space scenes, and some of the acting (particularly that of Michael O'Hare, who played Sinclair) seemed a bit wooden. Time has passed, and I find I actually welcome the crisp cleanness of B5's visuals. O'Hare's acting, however, while not bad, is a bit of an acquired taste. After watching the pilot twice today (twice!), I find the real star of this show is the writing. Creator J. Michael Straczynski has made a universe here as layered and complex as our own. This pilot feels like we've picked up a story somewhere in the middle, but it also sands on its own quite well and serves as a worthy introduction to the B5 universe.

My score: 4 (out of 5) Dancing Bananas:

:yipee: :yipee: :yipee: :yipee:

[HerodionRomulus]

This is mostly background with no spoilers of significance.

"Gathered here are representatives of three of the four major alien governments (the Minbari, the Narn, and the Centauri), with the fourth, a Vorlon named Kosh,"

Actually 5 major governments:
Minbari Federation, composed of 3 castes: Worker, Religious and Warrior. Ambassador Delenn is Religious.
Narn Regime: a semi-autocracy. Once conquered by the Centauri, the Narn are free and itching for payback. Amb.G'Kar.
Centauri Republic: a Constitutional Monarcy once ruling a large empire and now pining for lost glories. Amb. Londo Mollari.
Vorlon Empire: No one has ever seen a Vorlon. they rarely mingle with other races, no ship sent to Vorlon space returns.
Amb. Kosh Naranek--a fan favorite.
Earth Alliance: A united Earth, Mars and some scattered colonies.
There is a loose Alliance of Non-Aligned Worlds of dozens of other races.

Yes, the Earth-Minbari War 2245-2248. The Minbari never lost a battle, they beat the crap out of us, they lost. S1 major story line.

"I was off-put by the obviousness of the CGI space scenes,"
Just wait till S3 when JMS can spend 2 mil on one episode filled with battle scenes. Superb.

"O'Hare's acting, however, while not bad, is a bit of an acquired taste." My response is "Yes."

"I find the real star of this show is the writing. Creator J. Michael Straczynski has made a universe here as layered and complex as our own. "
Yes, JMS wrote all the eps in seasons 2,3,4 and 5. And most of S1. You can see which he did not write because the are mostly mediocre.

This pilot feels like we've picked up a storysomewhere in the middle."
Yes, this is smack dab in the middle of the story. As Delenn will say at some point "Absolfragginglutelydammit."

[HerodionRomulus]

Almost a year passed from the pilot to the series, there were several changes/improvements.

The most significant is that the appearance of the Minbari was changed--for the better.

Dr Kyle was replaced a a younger prettier Dr. Franklin
Lt. Cmdr Takashima was replaced with A Russian Jew, Susan Ivanova---a fan favorite.
The resident Psi Corps telepath changed. Pat Tallman decided not to do the series.
She was replaced by the actress wife of Jerry Doyle who plays Mr. Garibaldi. This will later be verrrrry significant.
Kosh was made even more remote and mysterious.
They messed with Londo's hair.
They dumped Sinclair's girlfriend, Catherine somethingorother because she was an acting dud and replaced her with another old flame Katherine Sakai---a great character actor you may recognize.

The series runs along with the chronological years, from 2258 to 2262. If a scene is set in Jan, it was aired originally in Jan.

There were also minor tweaks in the story arc but nothing significant enough to mention.