Return to Babylon 5 on Amazon Prime
One of the most influential of all science-fiction television shows, Babylon 5, has returned to the small screen. Amazon Prime has made all five seasons available, including several of the longer “movie” type episodes.
Created and almost entirely written by J. Michael Straczynski, the show broke new ground in long-form storytelling and special effects, and is credited by many as changing the way television shows since have been written and presented.
Straczynski said he conceived of the entire five-year story arc before he wrote the first episode, which had only previously been done in limited-run “miniseries” type shows. To conceive, much less pull off, a five-year self-contained storyline was something that had never before been tried.
And oh, what a story it was. An enormous space station located in a neutral star system where the various major and minor alien races could come together and attempt to diplomatically solve their various issues was Shakespearean in both scope and scale, and anchored by excellent acting, especially from Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas, Mira Furlan, and Bruce Boxleitner.
While the then-groundbreaking special effects have aged rather poorly, and both the sets and lighting are not up to modern standards, these become superficial when contrasted with the incredible storytelling.
It was our last best hope for peace. And well worth a lengthy binge-watch. A very lengthy binge-watch.