Underplayed Gems

Babylon 5 (1993)

Babylon 5 poster
Genre
military science fiction, space opera, drama television series, science fiction television series
Country
United States
Length
5 seasons, 110 episodes
Rated
TV-PG
Rating
8.0 of 10 from 603 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

The series follows the military staff and alien diplomats on a neutral space station built to prevent further wars. They navigate political intrigue, external conflicts, and the rise of a totalitarian regime on Earth.

cerebralslow-burnmelancholicpoliticaltensewistfulgrand-scalecharacter-driven

What happens

Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. After the successful airing of a test pilot movie on February 22, 1993, Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Bros. commissioned the series for production in May 1993 as part of its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). The show premiered in the United States on January 26, 1994, and ran for five 22-episode seasons. The series follows the human military staff and alien diplomats stationed on a space station, Babylon 5, built in the aftermath of several major inter-species wars as a neutral ground for galactic diplomacy and trade. Major plotlines included intra-race intrigue and upheaval, inter-race wars and their aftermaths, and embroilment in a millennial cyclic conflict between ancient races. The human characters, in particular, become pivotal to the resistance against Earth's descent into totalitarianism. Many episodes focused on the effect of wider events on individual characters. Episodes contained themes such as personal change, loss, oppression, corruption, and redemption. Unusually for American broadcast television at the time of its airing, Babylon 5 was conceived as a "novel for television" with a pre-planned five-year story arc, each episode envisioned as a "chapter". Whereas contemporaneous television shows tended to maintain the overall status quo, confining conflicts to individual episodes, Babylon 5 featured story arcs which spanned multiple episodes and even seasons, effecting permanent changes to the series universe. Tie-in novels, comic books, and short stories were also developed to play a significant canonical part in the overall story. Straczynski announced plans for a reboot of the series in September 2021 in conjunction with Warner Bros. Television. An animated feature-length, direct-to-video film, Babylon 5: The Road Home, was released in August 2023. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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