Tag Archives: Babylon 5

Babylon 5 : 10 years since the final episode aired.

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Exactly 10 years ago, November 25th 1998 the final episode of “Babylon 5”, “Sleeping in Light” was aired for the first time, completing the epic story.

Interesting is that just a few days ago the ISS had its 10th anniversary, too (the first module Zarya was launched). An imaginary space station was decommissioned and a the building of a real life space station was initiated.

B5 is a show I have watched several times by now, and one of the few shows (scifi or otherwise) that I recommend to lots of people. One of the things is that every single time I have seen it, there is something new – a new connection inside the story, a detail that has gone unnoticed before etc.

I have introduced it to a few people, watching it together with them and seen them come to love the show as I do. Not many shows can do that, and none other has done this for me.

The Babylon Podcast

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As a fan of Babylon 5 I have also become a fan of the Babylon Podcast.

I started listening to podcasts in 2006, and due to an accident late June that year I had some more time than usual at hand, so I started to look for more particular podcasts. Imagine my delight when I found that there was indeed a podcast about my favourite show. They had, at the time, “aired” about 40 shows. I downloaded the first few and listened, found it delightful and downloaded the rest, and listened to the first 42 (!) Babylon Podcasts in about two weeks.

Episode 1, a longer introductory episode “aired” in February 2006, with the hosts Summer and Tim telling why they were drawn to B5 and what kept them hooked, and Jeffrey telling about guests that could be expected to be featured on the podcast.

Show #2 had the first guest interview with Stephen Furst (“Vir Cotto”). He was a blast to both the hosts and to me to listen to, so the first hook was there …

Not just the Stars (actors) were interviewed, many of the crew as well. #3 brought us Bear Burge, the Master Prop Fabricator, and the first episode discussion on “Midnight on the Firing Line” (episode 1). Later this episode discussion segment got the title “Deep Geeking”, with it own “jingle”.

Many people have been interviewed on the podcast, a few names worth mentioning : Patricia Tallman, Bruce Boxleitner, Wayne Alexander (“The Inquisitor”, “Lorien” and a few other roles), John Iacovelli, Walter Koenig (one of my absolute favourite bad guys, the Psi Cop “Alfred Bester”), Producer John Copeland in a two part interview, the list is not endless, but quite long. Almost all of those interviews have been a joy to listen to, enriching the experience of the series.

A segment of feedback, at times *very* amusing, also brought out a “spin off” of the Babylon Podcast, called the “Three Edged Sword”. It all started as an in-joke between three of the most active feedback’ers, who finally agreed to make a story line out of their contributions. More about “Three Edged Sword” in a later post.

In the latest “Deep Geeking” (ep. #135), “No Surrender, No, Retreat” was discussed how Sheridan’s approach to the conflict was entirely different from the end of the Shadow War.

This week’s episode (#136) had an interview with the Babylon 5 script team members “Captain” Jaclyn and Jan, telling a part of the story of publishing the scrips for every single Babylon 5 episode, and the approach to doing it. Jaclyn stressed that J. Michael Stracynski had stated “It’s all about the fans!”

Of course, it is well known to many fans that the customer service of the scripts team has been legendary, more about the script books and the scripts team later

In addition to the compliments from the fans, Jaclyn had compliments to the fans and their behaviour when dealing with the scripts team.

For me one of the highlights was when Jaclyn who came into this as a business – a specialist in “print-on demand” books with no interest in SciFi – telling about her experience of watching B5. In short, she was blown away by the story. She told that she was surprised how much she could be moved by 1) a piece of art, 2) a television series, and finally 3) a SciFi series. High praise indeed.

link :
The Babylon Podcast

How I entered into the world of “Babylon 5”

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By Internet standards I will probably be regarded as old. I remember seeing Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001, a Space Odyssey” when it came in the cinemas in the late 1960’s, and, of course the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. I was allowed to stay up the night to see the first footsteps on the moon (some time around 2 AM local time). No internet, no NASA TV, just some blurred live black-and-white pictures on the telly.

My interest in scifi and space exploration had obviously started some time before, along with an interest in UFO’s and “X-Files” like stuff.

Fast forward to 1989 (yes – the year the Berlin Wall came tumbling down) I moved from Denmark to The Netherlands to work there.

At work, in the early 90’s we formed a group of “Star Trek” fans coming together watching a few episodes in an evening. We had come one evening to watch some “Deep Space 9”, and after that it turned out that one from the group had brought the “Babylon 5” pilot episode “The Gathering”.

I have to say that I did not like the pilot, thinking that it would not lead anywhere. How wrong I was … but I still consider the pilot under par, compared to what followed.

When the local TV started showing B5 I took another look, and lo and behold – that I found *much* better than the pilot.some season one episodes had the quality I was expecting from Trek, but soon the thing changed … this was not single episode stories – well. some of them were – but a longer story.

I was hooked.

I followed the 5 year arc to its end – sometimes at odd times of the day (or night), and soon found myself seeking out the VHS tapes.

After having watched the story several times I still get a thrill seeing it again. It has grown to be my all time favourite scifi story on TV – and there are many good ones out there.

I soon looked into more information about B5, on the net, books etc. – and got myself a few B5 goodies. But more about this later. Yes – I have all 15 volumes of J. Michael Straczynski’s (JMS) script books for all the B5 episodes he wrote. I still need to work myself though the about 7000 pages, but in time I will come though them, and as the completist in me told me, I got the “Other Voices” 3 volumes with episodes written by other writers, as well as the “Chronology” book and the quote’s book. There is enough reading for a while.