SUMMARY: In the year 2257, an immense space station called Babylon 5 floats in a stationary orbit in a neutral corner of a distant galaxy. Manned by a crew of peaceful Earthmen and women, Babylon 5 serves as a non-political economic and social hub for the four alien races - the Narn, Centauri, Vorlon and Minbari - who fight to control the galaxy.
The alien ambassadors are convening there to negotiate a peace treaty. Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Lieutenant Takashima and their security chief, Michael Garibaldi, are unprepared when the most mysterious of the ambassadors, Kosh Naranek, arrives two days early. Within minutes, Kosh is found near death in an airlock. The station's doctor, Benjamin Kyle, determines that Kosh was poisoned. If Kosh dies, the peace conference will fail.
Kosh had ordered all security cameras to be turned off because his race is very secretive about its appearance. Therefore, no one can identify the attacker except Kosh himself. Dr. Kyle convinces Lyta Alexander, a visiting "telepath" from Earth, to use her mind-reading powers to scan the dying ambassador's unconscious memory. To everyone's horror, Lyta reveals that Commander Sinclair
greeted Kosh in the airlock.
Garibaldi is suspicious of Lyta's powers and searches the station for evidence of the attacker. Meanwhile, the council, led by the ambitious Narn ambassador G'Kar, reluctantly votes to send Sinclair to Kosh's homeworld for trial.
Garibaldi's technicians soon discover a small alien vehicle attached to the outside of the space station's hull. They also find the corpse of a criminal named Del Varner, who had smuggled aboard a "changeling net," a device that completely disguises the wearer to look like anyone he chooses.
As Kosh's warships arrive to arrest Sinclair, the commander tracks down and kills the assassin that used the changeling net to impersonate him in the airlock. It turns out to be a Minbari who says that Sinclair has a hole in his mind before blowing himself up.
Sinclair learns that to corrupt the balance of power in the galaxy, G'Kar conspired with another person on Babylon 5 to
murder Kosh and blame the peacekeepers of Babylon 5. Fortunately, Kosh recovers, the truth is revealed, and G'Kar is appropriately punished.

BRASH REFLECTIONS: Well this was certainly a wonderful start to a great story.

As is the case with most Pilots, some improvments are made between the filming of the pilot, and the filming of the first episode of the series. Some are fairly obvious, so I'll simply point out the ones that only the trained eye (and I was trained by the best) could catch.

1: The Stone Garden is never shown again near as I can tell.

2: The enviro-masks for the alien sector, while bigger than those in the Pilot, certainly look better when Midnight On The Firing Line rolls around.

3: The station certainly handles internal explosions better after the pilot movie (good thing too).

4: The monitors changed.

5: And so did Commander Sinclairr's bedspread.

The rest I leave to you.

The Uniforms of the Earth Force also change.

Not a nit, but a little "hint" for the whole story arc. When Lyta Alexander is searching Kosh's memory and sees the meeting with "Sinclair" (the Minbari with Changeling Net), Kosa goes dwon the hallway and greets Sinclair while saying "Enzil'ta Valen" (pardon my horrendous spelling). Hmmm.... I wonder what that could mean (hint, hint!)? This was edited into the Special Edition version that aired on TNT.

Richie: Really? They look the same to me. Actually, my favorite change is the guns. PPGs certainly look better than these things.

I watched this episode after I'd seen several of the first season, and so I immediantly noticed that after the pilot, the creators changed Delenn's makeup! When I was watching this episode, I wasn't even sure it was Delenn I was seeing until she spoke.

Also, in this episode do male and female Minbari have the same type of bone crest instead of different ones? The Minbari with the Changeling Net seems to be female, by its crest, but Delenn refers to it as a "he".

Also something to note: Although JMS will not say if it is the same person, the actor that plays Mr. Morden plays a tech grunt in C&C in the pilot. He's most seen when they're trying to stabilize the station after the explosion. Just something to note . . .

It could be a clone placed by the Shadows. Ed Wasser, who plays Morden, has been campaignign to make a Morden clone an at least semi-regular on Crusade. Otherwise, it can't be the same person, can it? I mean, Morden WAS on the Icarus... (insert demented laugh here; even better if you imagine it to be JMS)

As I recall (hopefully accurately), when the pilot originally aired Londo referred to Sinclair as the last commander of Babylon 5.

As I recall (hopefully accurately), when the pilot originally aired Londo referred to Sinclair as the last commander of Babylon 5.

Hans: Fraid not.

Actually, Hans is partially correct. THe opening narration by Londo in the original airings og "The Gathering" has him saying something about how Babylon 5 acheived it's goal "under it's final commander". We all took that to mean Sinclair originally. I guess it now makes sense to mean under Lochley, depending on how thigns work out in these final few episodes... We'll see...

Not sure where to post this, but here seems quite good. Does anyone know if B5 is going to get repeated in the UK, as I have only seen seasons 4+5.

Ed, channel 4 started showing season 1 of B5 in the same slot which the 'final 5' has now... they got up to 'The Parliament Of Dreams' and according to one of my magazines, C4 should continue showing them after 'Sleeping in Light'... watch your TV guide...

if you are talking about the one in the morning slot, I already knew about that, I just forgot to say so. British Televison seems to have an irritating lack of consideration for sci-fi fans. The BBC kick Star Trek (and Red Dwarf for that matter, oh and Sliders) of its slot regurlarly to show sport. I never understand channel 4's thinking behind showing Babylon 5 at midnight.

Ed - couldn't agree with you more. If I asked nicely, d'you think Channel 4 would send me some matchsticks to keep my eyes open at work on Monday mornings? :) Still, at least by seeing them late at night, we don't get that d*rned clock superimposed over the titles so you can't even tell what each episode's called!! <g>

When the station personel do a scan of the station, lots of station blueprints flash by on the screen. INCREDIBLY enough, at least two of them are from the Star Fleet Technical manual! The section that shows deck plans for those large tube shaped personel transports is there (specifically the theatres, I think). Also shown are Enterprise Officer's quarters

The fighters that keep doing fly-bys of the station exterior look like Raider fighters. Are we to assume these are the equivalents of Starfuries?
Also the music changed for the better.

The last commander bit orginally did mean Sinclair based on the orginal pilot. When Londo said that line they showed a picture of Sinclair. The re-edited pilot takes Sinclair's picture out. By the way, it's worth owning both versions and then compare. I watched both in one evening and it was striking how the re-edited version was so much better.

Bear in mind though that Commander isn't just a rank, it's also a title. The C.O. (Commanding Officer) of a vessel is usuallyy referred to as a Captain even though his rank migh not be such. To make comparisons in WWII, the captains of say, a torpedo boat would probably be around the Lieutenant rank, but far higher for a Cruiser or Battleship.
The title Commander is quite often used for 'installations' like bases.
To get back to the point, although Sheridan was an EF captain, he was Commander of B5.

Ok, I just watched this for the first time today. Anyone else notice that the doohicky says "Laurel Takashima cleared" when the baddie goes into the quarters!?

She was supposed to be a bad guy in the series.

Like Talia became?

Remember the aide that shot Garabaldi in the back? Had the actress that played Takashima stayed, it would have been her that did that. I believe Mr. Strazinsky once indicated that her trechery wasn't entirely willing.

Warning, potential spoiler...... If you haven't seen the series, don't read this. So, yes, Maxwell Smart, I believe like Talia, she would have had a secondary, implanted personality. Remeber, Laurel was on Mars during the Food Riots, and PsiCorp had a training facility there.

From what I've read, Laurel was originally meant to be involved in the assasination of President Clark (had she stayed)

Penguin, that should be President Santiago, not Clark (he wasn't president until the assasination of Santiago). She would have played the role that Garibaldi's aide did in the assasination plot (i.e. letting the jammers through, and shooting Garibaldi in the back).

Since this is the first episode, and there really isn't anywhere else I can put this.....


To Addict A Friend:

Out of all the episodes of Babylon 5, which episode would you show someone to get them hooked on the series?

Personally I’d have put this at the end of Sleeping in Light so as to avoid spoilers, but I’m sure Richie will move these messages if he sees fit.

These are my choices of episodes for a new viewer. They’re in order of broadcast rather than my personal order of favourites:

Midnight on the Firing Line: first episode after The Gathering and a lot more interesting, IMO. Sets up the story and the background well.

Infection: a fairly standard sci-fi type episode but hopefully has enough to pique the interest of a new viewer.

Deathwalker: though I’m not sure whether the Talia/Kosh/Abbut scenes would intrigue a new viewer or would put them off – I guess it would depend if I knew that the friend could cope with them.

A Distant Star: the Cortez is a great-looking ship, the Starfuries are around a lot, and a tantalising glimpse of a Shadow ship ought to pique their interest!

Confessions and Lamentations: Beautiful episode; six tissue job at the end.

The Fall of Night: the death of Keffer; great battle scenes; Sheridan jumps out of a tram; Kosh comes out of his shell.

If I could only show my friend one of these episodes, it’d be A Distant Star.

We need a Sink here man! We could call it the Zocolo.

I was wondering if anyone knew the differences between the original version and the re-edited version

What I can remember off the top of my head....

A few redone FX shots.
A new score by Chris Franke rather than the Copeland piece.
Some additional footage including showing a certain B5 officers ID card being used for suspicious reasons, an incident in security, and a slightly different greeting between Kosh and Sinclair.

In the bit where Sinclair shows someone (I don't remember who) through the alien sector we see them walking through it, includuing some small aliens in what looked more like transparent zoo cages than appartment doors. JMS said he got the idea because of lthings like Japaneese business hotels that are just beds on a rack, rather than whole rooms, but since the fans didn't get or like it he dropped it.

They also added the bit where Sinclair fights the dust smuggler with the fake ID card, that scene was deleted from the origional version.

I think I saw this pilot years ago when it first aired on TV, but did not end up jumping on the bandwagon with the series. I think I may have been attracted to the presence of hottie (Tamlyn Tomita in the pilot.)

Since I've heard such great things about this show, and read some articles on it at Wikipedia, I decided to try and get into it. I saw the pilot again a week or two ago, and liked how an explosion actually caused a decompression that threatened the station, and that the physics of outer space actually played in realistically to this crisis, and how it was averted. There was a nice sense of tension as Kosh's people threatened the station.

Although I never watched the series, I was aware of it, and I too, noticed how different Delenn looked in terms of her purely Minbari appearance. (I'm curious to see why and when she grows hair to her more human appearance.) She also seemed a lot more fierce in personality in this episode than she appeared in some later one when, in her more human appearance, she was accosted by a group of bigots.

I saw the pilot again a week or two ago, and liked how an explosion actually caused a decompression that threatened the station, and that the physics of outer space actually played in realistically to this crisis, and how it was averted.

NASA was asked for help in making sure that the physics on Babylon 5 were as close to the real world as was practical for a TV show - The station even (apparently) rotates at the correct speed to produce near Earth gravity.

Although I never watched the series, I was aware of it, and I too, noticed how different Delenn looked in terms of her purely Minbari appearance.

Delenn was originally meant to be male, although played by a female actress. This was dropped after the pilot as they were not happy with the voice effects.

I'm sure that made Captain Sheridan feel very relieved.

Oh, and almost forgot: The CGI was awful! I remember noting how bad it looked years ago when I was perusing the series, or seeing shots during commercials or something, and how unimpressed I was, but in actually seeing them in an entire episode....ugh. I remember when I learned that an effects company that worked on B5 would be coming to work on Voyager, and I remember thinking, "Oh, no. Isn't that show bad enough without having lousy effects?" Luckily, I think the technology got better by then, and I never noticed a lowering of the FX quality on Voyager (though some of those CGI explosions were not that impressive).

As I recall, Delenn was meant to be androgynous rather than male. The make up in the pilot seems to be a holdover as it always struck me that it made her look more masculine than in the series proper.

Al at Mutant Reviewers From Hell is also a newbie to B5 and has doing a review diary of the first season (and presumably will do the others). Though I imagine his reactions will vary considerably from Luigi's.

http://www.mutantreviewers.com/rbabylon5.html

Luigi Novi - Oh, and almost forgot: The CGI was awful!

The CGI was not great, epically in the early seasons, but they were working on a budget of about half of what the Star Trek series at the time had. Also in the age old tradeoff between something looking cool & epic vs it looking real they chose the more epic path while TNG chose the more real looking, if less epic, path.

On TNG the mantra seemed to mostly be if they couldn't afford to make something look as real as possible than don't do it at all. That's why no matter how big a ship, city or building the characters beam into a small room, with perhaps a small window. B5 often had huge windows overlooking huge areas, large CGI set extensions cameras flying out windows, where we start with the sets and actors and than fly out into the outer space world of huge space ships. I liked that even though the effects weren't that great it just made the worlds inside of the station/ships seem more connected to the world outside of the station/ships, and the ships and station had moving parts.

Also on the DVD version the CGI looks worse than it did on broadcast because the show was shot in widescreen, on film (JMS was looking forward to when HDTVs became the standard) but the special effects were done at NTSC 4x3 resolution with the idea that they could go back later and re-render the SFX at a higher resolution in the future. Much of the old computer data was lost by the company so when they did the widescreen DVDs they retransfered the old film elements but just upresed the old NTSC SFX footage for DVD.

If it were made today, with HD production being the standard I'm sure it would look amazing, but you don't sit around waiting for technology to get better, you do the best you can with what you have. It also had a big influence on genre shows of today. It was one of the first to have long running story arcs and morally ambiguous characters that are now the standard on shows like Galactica and the rest. Although they didn't yet know how to keep viewers up to date when they brought back some character or plot thread from 2 years ago they would usually either do a quick black & white flash back (which I liked) or have some ham-fisted dialogue like "oh you mean the guy who came here and tried to arrest me last year." These days shows just do the old "previously on The Shield/ER/Battlestar Galactica" which I think works much better.

Either way I'm sure that you will enjoy the series. It's very philosophical, epic and smart.

***SPOILER***

Delenn was to be androgynous, along with all Minbari and becoming totally female was to be a part of the same transformation that made her more human-like. They didn't like the vocal effects that were to have given her a more masculine voice and liked the actress' natural speaking voice (it is very powerful) so much that they chose to just drop that and depict the Minbari as having standard gender divide.

I don't think all the FX in early TNG were that great. They did use real models, which obviously made the difference in closeups, but other effects were not very impressive. I specifically remember a shot of IIRC, an asteroid hitting a ship, I think it was the asteroid hitting the Tsialkovsky at the end of The Naked Now, and the ensuing explosion looked like they just superimposed footage of an explosion over the shot of the models, something they did more than once. Conversely, the interiors shots of the B5 O'Neill cylinder when O'Hare and (IIRC) Talia are traveling through it looked pretty good.

I'm not watching it on DVD, though. I'm watching it on Hulu.com. Thanks for the heads-up, and Happy Holidays.

By Brian FitzGerald (Brifitz1980) on Thursday, December 25, 2008 - 7:27 pm:

Luigi Novi - Oh, and almost forgot: The CGI was awful!

The CGI was not great, epically in the early seasons, but they were working on a budget of about half of what the Star Trek series at the time had. Also in the age old tradeoff between something looking cool & epic vs it looking real they chose the more epic path while TNG chose the more real looking, if less epic, path.

I seem to recall JMS commenting that the budget for the average Startrek episode was almost the same as he had for an entire season of B5.

B5's special effects vary, some of the effects are, quite frankly, jaw dropping and do things that Startrek didn't come close to managing until they switched to CGI themselves for many effects. It wasn't until the Start of season 6 of DS9 that we got to see large fleet battles on Startrek - and then they lacked something of the scope and 'reality' of even the smallest B5 battles. Certainly Startrek never managed to equal the battles shown in B5's second series onwards, and nothing in Startrek comes close to the battle done for season 3's 'Messages from Earth', even if you include the films.

Not bad for a series who's entire special effects budget for all 5 seasons was probably less that the costume budget for the average season of Startrek.

The sets, however, were never the equal to Startrek. It took me 3 years to realise that the window in the Captains office was meant to be looking out into the inside of the station, and wasn't just a painting - which it was and always looked like.

When it started B5 was frequently compared with DS9. In hindsight it seems that this is the wrong way around. DS9 should be compared to B5 - DS9 copied the use of CGI, running plots, large space battles and a more 'epic' feel to the series all to a greater or lesser degree. Those areas where they got close tended to rest in areas where they could simply spend more money.
It is interesting to note that Voyager, probably the least popular Startrek series, only used the CGI. It is also worthy of note that every major Sci-fi series produced since DS9 has tried to copy those elements from B5 that helped it rise above the low budget, flimsy sets and it has to be said occasional awful dialogue - just look at the New Battlestar Galactica.

The Gathering may not be the best sci-fi around, and certainly isn't close to being the best of B5. But this is where it all started, and set the benchmark for a lot of the serious TV series that have followed.

Love it for that if nothing else.

Voyager did not exclusively use CGI. They used models, particularly in their early seasons. I've got over a dozen pics of them, several of which are from Star Trek Magazine.

Cybermortis: I seem to recall JMS commenting that the budget for the average Startrek episode was almost the same as he had for an entire season of B5.

Actually it was the budget for the Voyager pilot he was talking about, which IIRC was in the range of twenty-three megs.

Sinclair was accused by a telepath. Why didn't he ask for a telepathic forensic exam? It would show that he actually was in the tube.