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    Honouring everyone's second favourite SF series

     Go to the Sh*t-St*rrers Guide to Blake's 7


    Updated MAY 2000

    The Dawn of the Turd Age of Mankind
    Season 1 Season 2 Season 3Season 4 Season 5 Telemovies Crusade
    A sea Quest-stirring guide to BABYLON 5- Season one. Commence KeBabs.

    The Gathering :Invoking Privacy: Let's discuss a secret business deal. I'll just draw a lot of
    attention to us with a light show. Poisoning Kosh: How can one kill with a nicotine patch?
    Sinclair showing Lyta through Bablyon 5's "zoo" (also known as known as living quarters for
    intelligent alien beings with either no rights to privacy or an exhibitive streak.) Love the briefing
    room set (4 chairs and a desk). ...
     ...
    Midnight on the Firing Line- The aftermath of B5's first annual cast cull nets the
    overenunciating Doctor and the wooden second in command. Ivanova begins her service as a
    parking attendant. Sinclair goes from smiling a lot in the pilot to brooding a lot. His face seems
    to have caught the same disease as practically every other commander in a sci-fi series (a la
    Frakes, Brooks, Franklin. Nimoy had an excuse, Doohan did not). Oak-face, freezes all facial
    nerves, but in Sinclair's case, his eyes over-compensate by darting around like fireflies.
    Delenn's had plastic surgery.
     ...
    Soul Hunter - Creatures with buttocks on their forehead who can sense the dead- Hmmmm. I
    hope the Marble wedged firmly in there comes out. Trek make up is bumpy foreheads, keBabs is
    bums on heads. Born to the Purple- Londo gets paid, betrayed and laid. Sinclair thinks he's
    Sinatra with his mixing with the low-lifes of B5. Underworlds take many years to form, yet on
    B5, only two years old...
     ...
    Infection - Ho hum, Predator 2. But that final monologue! 'Because it's there?' David
    McCalllum is back but how did he and Sapphire get out of the Coffee Lounge in deep space?
    The Parliament of Dreams.- Twee ending but sweet. G'Kar and Na'Toth are The Narn
    Avengers.
     ...
    Mind War- ripping off Tolkien is one thing but stealing from The Prisoner is sacrilege.
    Australian Body language expert Alan Pease reckons that the 'Be Seeing You' hand signal means
    'homosexual' in Northern Greece. I don't know which Northern Greece he's been to but it's
    obviously not the same one I've lived in. Not unless Patrick McGoohan has become some sort of
    Hellenic gay icon. Back to the quarter million tonne one (Does that mean B 5 is lighter in
    metric?), Bester is a creep, but a better creep than Checkov (not the playwright). His assistant's
    accent is so over the top, it jars more than an IXL factory. Does the last scene mean Talia is now
    the ultimate pick-pocket?
     ...
    The War Prayer- The bigots are back in town.
     ...
    And the Sky is Full of Stars- Whoa! A good 'un apart from giving away the VR game a bit too
    early. Skagra or Colonel Quute?
     ...
    Deathwalker- Bumper sticker down our way- 'Kosh Kills.' Robin Curtis appears- still crap
    though. "David... is...dead, Commander."
     ...
    Believers- B5's answer to certain Christian churches- ignore their wishes. But where did the
    other Doctor spring from? Her only duty was to oppose Franklin at every turn. Some love it, but
    this a Star Trek: Babylon Five episode (try 'Ethics')
     ...
    Survivors: Jerry Doyle auditions for Leaving Las Vegas.
     ...
    Signs and Portents: What do I want? Centauri women to discover the magic of plugs (Why do
    they advertise that almost exclusively on late night SF like B5 and Quantum Leap but not Star
    Trek? All four series now possess a baldy. B5 only has semi-chrome-domes). By any Means
    Necessary- Rush Limbaugh would have been forgotten in ten years time. B5 has immortalised
    him. Don't be alarmed! Babylon 5, Yeah  Yeah!
     ...
    The Quality of Mercy- Only dickheads moan that June Lockhart and Billy Mumy don't have
     a scene together. Otherwise, it's a Trek-me-down story.
     ...
    Grail- David Warner with Thomas. One can act, one can't. One is well repected by the industry
    and the other keeps appearing in Star Trek. Which one? Jinxo looks as though he's already been wiped by the feeder.
     ...
    Eyes- "I didn't always want to be a telepath. I always wanted to be a zoo-keeper. Ben Zayn: "I'm
    very evil. I have to be. You see, Commander- I've an overdone British accent."
    When will Americans learn that while Britain has an accent for every day of the year, they only have one weather forecast
    .
    TKO- "I'd like to thank, Don. "
     ....
    A Voice in the Wilderness. Ivanova: "I think I've got to go to the bathroom." Sinclair: "I
    already did." What where the odds of Draal staying behind? 1:1? Ivanova is always right.
    Sinclair is always rolling his eyes as opposed to another form of facial expression. Garibaldi is
    always pondering life's great questions to Sinclair. A show about nother? It's Babylon Seinfeld!
    Do you shake and flush or...
     ...
    Babylon Squared- Portents of the future. Sink is the one responsible. Even better, his great,
    great grandfather is rumoured to make an appearance. His C5 develops a fault and the onboard
    computer, a ZX81, opens a hole in the fabric in space.
    .
    Legacies- Yet another guest star who has attended the Jenny Craig school of acting.
     ....
    Chrysalis- Santiago bites the dust. But all this before Space decided to nick the idea. Cut scene-
    Delenn wanted to go camping but it rained so Lennier suggested she put up a tent in her room but it interefered with the ceiling fan. In the end, she decided just to sleep in an old sleeping bag. But when she awoke, she found the zipper had rusted and got caught inside. Until next season.

     ...

    Season Two  - Our Best Hope for Cheese
    Points of Depature- Sinclair has been bundled off to Minbar. Who's been a naughty boy? Amazing how no one leaves B5 with a leaving scene. Delenn is still in her mound while the revelation that  Minbari souls are being reborn in humans makes the whole Earth-Minbari war seem silly and the  boneheads hatred of Sheridan silly. So every Minbari death is not so much losing a Minbari Warrior but gaining a human in return.
     ...
    Revelations- Sheridan's wife doesn't look like Melissa Gilbert so she must be an imposter as it
    is a law in California that the kid from Little House on Z'ha'dum must play Bruce's wife in
     everything he appears in. Just wait for the reinstated scenes from the Tron Special Edition
    (Now with real CGI effects and the light bike scene removed because it encourages
     dangerous driving).
     ...
    The Geometry of Shadows- Garibaldi(the name gets more appropriate each season, more so if
    the character's name was Gary)  regains the will to beat up perps with his night-stick .
     The whole Drazi thing was  better the first time around when William Shatner was the Captain
     in 'Let that be  Your Last Battlefield.'  Let that be your Last Star Trek episode!
     ...
    A  Distant Star- I think this episode is where Franklin is not only a crushing
     bore (like Beverly Crusher) AND a pain in the arse (like early Bashir).
     ...
    The Long Dark- Ah, breaking the Hippocratic oath by having a relationship with
    your patient is one thing but the age thing is just  plain  sick. She's old enought to be your
     great-great grandmother, Hanky Panky Franky.
     ...
    Spider in the Web- This is almost a reunion with Taro and Talia, Horn and Carter
    Corn and Ham... Bureau 13 puts paid to the whole arc theory of Babylon 5.
     ...
    A Race Through Dark Places- What is that gesture Bester does? It looks like Walter
    Koenig is subconsciously channeling his thoughts on 'The Shat.' I like how social issues
    permeate the series. No, I don't. The whole rent thing is, er, low rent.
     ...
    Soul Mates-  More of Talia's exes arrives on Babylon 5. Seriously, she puts herself about so
     much it's hard to see what Garibaldi sees in her. Oh, that's right, she looks just like
     Andrea Thompson.  Londo gets a divorce and picks the one with the most annoying accent. What is it with JMS and English accents? Most Americans these days hate English accents.
     ...
    The Coming of Shadows-Too Good to rubbish
     ...
    GROPOS- But this is isn't. Another "My Dad doesn't love me" episode with Garibaldi singularly
    failing to Gropo the Gropo (Apparently an ex of Jerry Doyle)
     ...
    All Alone in the Night- More ep titles like this and  we'll be having episodes later on called
    "Last Best Hope for peace, It was the Dawn of the Third Age of Mankind" and "The name
     of the place is". A bit 'been there, seen that.'  Delenn is stripped of her title. Pity it ended there. The looming Earth Gov
     conflicts are turned up a notch even though B5 is in danger of being sunk by fifteen wars.
     ...
    Acts of Sacrifice- That Ivanova gives good boogie.
     ...
    Hunter, Prey- Isn't Clark's doctor Wolfie Smith's second landlord?Power to the People.
    And you can't Richard Moll as a threat ever since Night Court.
     ...
    There All the Honor Lies- I really wish someone would remove all the poetry anthologies
    from JMS's bookshelf. Back in the days when JMS wouldn't allow B5 toys this ep was an attck on
    the Trek merchandising but that attitude seems to have gone the way of the Markab.
     ...
    And Now For a Word- Why the hatchet job? B5 wasn't out of favour yet? Or is JMS upset at
    the treatment Captain Power got from TV Guide and Entertainment Tonight?
     ...
    Knives- Some of the strokes JMS paints in realising his alien races are masterful and others,
    like this, don't. The Centauri aren't yet as interesting as they should be and Sheridan's little
     B-story isn't interesting at all. There also seems to be an awful lot of vomitting of Light
     on this show.
     ...
    In The Shadow of Z'ha'Dum-Sheridan throws the rule book out the window but the resulting depressurisation convinces him it wasn't a good move.
     ...
    Confessions And Lamentations- Sniff!
     ...
    Divided Loyalties- I know Pat Tallman is JMS's friend and he didn'twant to replace
     her with Andrea Thompson, but she sucks! She's a stuntwoman, not an actress, damn it!
    Love the bit with Garibaldi.
     ...
    Comes the Inquisitor- What is it with putting the star on trial or under interrogation? Brucey
    gets more torture than even Shatnerman in his day.
     ...
    The Fall  of Night- Keffer goes AWOL and is MIA but gives ISN a pic of a UFO. It
     was such a uniformly excellent season that only a Sh*t-St*rrer could welcome the drop in
     quality of several third season eps.

     

    SEASON THREE- Point of No Point to Michael York
    Matters of Honor- Everybody's favourite character, Marcus, makes his first
     appearance and claims in one scene that he never talks when he doesn't have to. He got over that pretty quickly.
    ...
    Convictions- Based on this ep, JMS should be. Another bedside vigil- one of this  season's cliches One beacon of light in this ep is the scene in the lift with G'Kar  and Londo. Lucky they didn't use the same escape technique that the four models use in the stretch jeans ad. (four skinny girls in an elevator with an old liftman and a small puppy when the cable frays and is about to snap. The girls take off their stretch jeans and use it to shore up the cable. The lift descends, the dog gets up but everyone else  is catapulted up again- I assume the result is the same as the
    Goodies in Kitten Kong)
    ...
    A Day in the Strife- Franklin has a stims addiction because he's pulling long shifts. JMS has been writing, script editing and producing the season on his own. WB had to take out a restraining order to stop him acting in all the parts. Like he didn't need 'assistance' in capsule form. The whole probe thing is "no arc, no point.'
    ...
    Passing Through Gethsemane. Having Brad Dourif as a killer, even a reformed one, is not the most original or interesting of casting. You see him and you know instantly that he's hiding something. Try having him as someone with no dark side if you want to break typecasting and surprise the audience (Do what Doctor Who did with the Ice Warriors).

    Dust to Dust
    G'Kar, or as he is known down south, Gee-Kar, is on a bad trip. Londo gets the shit beaten out of him. But then he's so full of it he could be a shit donor.

    Exogenesis I, like mant other Babs viewers have seen the X-Files
    ...
    Messages from Earth- Here, John 'Dry Sherry' Sheridan opens a jump gate in Jupiter's atmosphere. About the only place he hasn't opened a jump gate is one to hell, but then there seems to be a short cut there because everything's gone 'straight to hell.'
    ...
    Point of No Return-I'm sorry but having Majel Barret in anything these days is like saying "please Star Trek, don't hate me because I'm beautiful." At least she doesn't stink. And please don't speculate about Londo's chances for redemption. Londo took a dump today and lost one one chance for Redemption
    ...
    Severed Dreams-  Babs casts off its shackles. Woo-hoo!
    ...
    Ceremonies of Light and Dark-
    After a gorging on the good stuff here starts a prolonged
    shit-fest. While not has bad as some of the episodes to come it offers only Don Stroud's Popeye impression. "I yams what I yams." SOme of the prisoner rip-offs like using "Be Seeing You and just singing "Dry Bones" (not Dem Bones) just smacks of self-indulgent twattery. I love that show but some of so-called homages are just so obvious so that everyone who's ever heard of the show will get the jokes. It's like everytime Florence Henderson appears on a sitcom, there's three Brady Bunch jokes in there (without fail).
    Sorry to turn into Seinfeld, but what is the deal with Sparky? Does JMS want to insult veryone's intelligence and not just  those people who think sea Quest should have been given one last chance? From everything I've read about Harlan Ellison, it seems he successfully projected his personality through his voice-over.
    ...
    Sic Transit Vir. While the Centauri's evilness was only really hinted at with Londo and Refa (the mass drivers were impersonal) it it Lyndisty who just personifies the "Let's Bomb Iraq regaurdless" mentality of because we can kick someone, we should." But Vir is a hero to the Narna and the Centauri all in one fell swoop.
    ...
    A Late Delivery from Avalon- Warning, Michael York alert!!. This episode sucks in major way. Avoid like the clap.
    ...
    Ship of Tears-  Bester and his mistress. It's a hard thing to accept, Keptin. This episode is not so much part of the shadow War arc but should come into play at the end of the 4th season. So in other words, watch it later.
    ...
    Interludes and Examinations Sherry gets in a tizz and Kosh is fizzed. It may not be funny but it rhymes.
    ...
    War Without End-  Roller Coaster and if bad continuity caused spacial anonalies then this show could have been at the epicentre of the End of the Universe. But it's not. Roller-Eyes Sinclair is back, wooden at first but only to show up his majesty after he realises he supposed to become Valen.
                          ..... 
    Walkabout-If there was an award for the most hated characters in SF, who would win? Wesley? Adric? Marcus, even? No, it would be Biggs. Not only does it feature him but it has a JMS song in it.
       .
    Grey 17 is Missing- This episode doesn't exist any longer. I will never watch it again. JMS should have taken a long break before he wrote this drivel. Grey 17 is missin forever
    .
    And the Rock Cried out, No Hiding Place-Better, but it still has a song by Joey Micheal and the Straczynskies. The Narn's assasination of Refa was a nice plot twist
                  .
    Shadow Dancing Franklin is stabbed. Woo-hoo! Anna's had some plastic surgery.
    .
    Z'ha'dum- Ver' good. Make fun of it. No But next season is another matter

     
    Season Four- No Surrender, No Dinner

    The Hour of the Wolf-  After the tumult of the last season, this is disappointing. The arc's (unnecessary, as it is now) telescoping didn't encompass the speeding up of proceedings here. For a season opened its an eye closer.

     Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi? Cartagia is madder than King George when he was in his blue stool phase.

    The Summoning He' back!
     ...
    Falling Toward Apotheosis  Sheridan only has another 20 years to live, which should contract negotiations for season 24 interesting
     ...
    The Long Night  Cartagia gets his just deserts. So does Londo. Is this
    another chance for redemption? Only if he kept his receipt.
     ...
    Into the Fire  "Will you come with us?" the Shadows ask. Ah, the whole war was not a battle between opposite ideologies but a cry for help. The Shadows are a bunch of wussy sooks.
     ...
    Epiphanies  Bester is back but he's a bastard. A bad bloody bastard. Boring perhaps but a a baddie not a buddie. Blame the buggers back at base.
     ...
    The Illusion of Truth Good News and Bad News and more Good News for CNN. Good news is that you'll still be here in 300 years time. Bad News is that you become a propaganda machine. More Good News is that Ted Turner will be dead.
     ...
     Atonement Delenn goes on a bender and has visions
     ...
     Racing Mars Sheridan and Delenn get it on with Lennier and his Minbari pals from the Voyeur caste listen in. And those aren't robes but waterproof raincoats.
     ...
    Lines of Communication  Oh, Stephen! I suppose a choice between Marcus and Franklin would be difficult but at least Marcus has his pole.
    The Drakh costume is so obviously dissappointing that the video effect only concentrated attention on it. And the way it moves, surely they should be called The Drunk? What is it with JMS that everyone of Babs' command staff has to have people outside listening to their lovemaking?
     ...
    Conflicts of Interest   Zathras. Zathras. Zathras. See the difference? Garibaldy's new job description includes ignoring obvious bloopers (Lise waiting in line seconds before Garibaldi gets confirmation of her safe return)
     ...
    Rumors, Bargains and Lies
    Sheridan is one devious son of a bitch. Guy Siner, one of the Minbari conspirators, played the gay Nazi in the BBC sitcom 'Allo, 'Allo. What next, John Inman as a Narn or Melvyn Hayes as the Centauri emperor?
     ...
    Moments of Transition
    Up the worker's caste! with a bottle of Sars? Neroon makes the ultimate sacrifice. Can you guess which actor criticised the script? Do all British actors in the US have to put on the plummiest accent they can? I can imagine how Jimmy Nail's going to sound when he plays Kosh in the finale.
     ...
    No Surrender, No Retreat Sheridan kicks ass, though not the same one
    Garibaldi refuses to kiss. His ass-kissing is on Mars. Ivanova kicks rather than kisses and the Heracles (Hercules if you prefer the Roman version but I'm Greek and I prefer Heracles) misses. If you had to kiss someone's ass, Ivanova is the only logical choice. Talia's spying ass is also a logical contender. Lyta can take her Vorlan-enhanced ass and...
      Finally, a Babs this season, worth seceeding from home for.
     ...
    The Exercise of Vital Powers The titles have become so pretentious that JMS has taken to having lines in the script explaining what they mean. Like "can you hear the Silence of the Lambs, Clarice?" How old is Ephram Zimbalist Sr. these days? Another episode weaving a complex web... for next season. D'oh
     ...
    The Face of the Enemy
    Holy Shit! JMS has managed to pull another cracker out of his arse once again. Face of the Enemy is B5's most stylishly directed outing to date- apart from the scene where Bester explains Garibaldi's recent behaviour. There's one cracker JMS can replace immediately.
    .
    Intersections in Real Time
    What is the deal with the damn interrogation episodes? JMS is trying to make out these are necessary, but in reality what they are the Babs equivalent of a Trek "bottle" show- ie cheap. Not interesting and the opening scenes of the next episode prove this instalment adds bugger all.
    .
    Between the Darkness and the Light
    This is more like it. A decent episode
    .
    Endgame
    Hmmm
    .
    Rising Star
    Can't find a sausage amiss here. Marcus died but I didn't feel he was as bad as a lot of fans thought. Franklin, yes, but Marcus merely had dialogue given to him by JMS to show off his accent. Never has one producer radiated such stirring feelings of inadequacy about his own accent. The Russian chick's a bit young and too much off a Stereotype to be convincing as the President of Earth. And why didn't Ivanova have a similarly COD accent?
    .
    The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
    Despite being a bit wanky in the first half, the latter two stories are really quite good, depressing and uplifting at the same time. Oh, and what's the name of the book the monk this was from?
    .
    .
    Season Five ("Wheel of Fire")

    No Compromises Claudia Christian has left. We need a replacement who doesn't haveany sleazy roles in her past. Tracy Scoggins? Prefect... Hang on a minute! Starts off looking like a palid retread of "Convictions," but improves dramatically. Still- has some really funky dialogue, and I use the terms in its pre-70's meaning. For those of you still unclear, most of the dialogue spoken by Corwin, Byron and John Wilkes Booth reeks like three day old socks, ones Sheridan forgot to wash when he was on Z'ha'dum. Those first few lines from Byron made me physically ill.
    .
    The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
    Or the very long 45 minutes of the audience. Apart from the final confrontation with G'Kar,
    this episode is drivel. Sorry, JMS.No, hang on. I feel entitled to aske JMS for an apology.
    .
    The Paragon of Animals
    I liked it. The scenes with the telepath being told the story by the refugee where really, really crappy.
    .
    A View from the Gallery
    Corwin seems to be glued to Lochley's butt. Like CC, TS's butt is one of those adhesive-friendly ones. He also seems to have a unique uniform. Combine that with his new haircut and it looks as though Corwin was on his way to a party when the emergency got in the way of his night out.
    Bo and Mack were better than I expected. I just hope spoo isn't what it sounds like.
    .
    Learning Curve
    This episode, a good one, features the crappiest villain ever. The accent changes from Australian, Kiwi and Cockney scene to scene. He seems to give orders to people who are mutes. For once the dialogue was excellent in this episode. JMS seems able to write best for Centauri, Narn and Minbari and shithouse for anyone else. But the way the episodes are presented, the place is so damned quiet, even in crowd scenes, there are no sounds, echoes or anything. Babs has bought TV SF a lot but it won't give us any distinctive sound effects like Doctor Who or Trek.
    .
    Strange Relations
    Oh my god! You killed Byron! You Besterd! Bester (who thinks of Walter Koenig as Checkov any more?) A strange episode amd a good un but Lochley is exactly the sort of character the series needed as the regulars were so closely knit- Sheridan and Garibaldi carry on as if nothing happened and even G'Kar seems to have forgotten Londo's role in the invasion of Narn. Can't see this sort of animosity and mistrust onboard Voyager unless of course some sort of temporal anomaly...
    .
    Secrets of the Soul
    Does anybody on B5 have ANY privacy? First we had the alien sector/ peep show in the pilot, then we had both Sheridan and Franklin's lovemaking eavesdropped apon (perhaps I should have put the word respectively in there. That is to say they weren't together but they each had sex and had people listening to 'em. But here with Lyta and Byron, it was a full on porno peep show with all the other telepaths included in a psorgy (think about it). Rather risque with JMS saying the Pat Tallman didn't use a body double. No disrespect to Ms Tallman, despite her great shape, I don't think anyone would have said a body double was used.
     It was rather risque until I realised Byron's hands were holding heres rather than clutching at something else. Still raunchier than the usual Melrose Place embraces. I half expected a sex scene on B5 to include stock footage of star furies docking, travel tubes, a Vorlon ship going into a jump gate, that sort of thing. Bonkalong 5.
    ,
    Day of the Dead
    Excellent. The first non JMS ep in yonks proves that the series can be JUST as good if he doesn't dot every t and cross every i. Here's the clue the ep wasn't his- the dialogue's shitloads better than usual and Neil Gaiman (who I believe writes some underground comic) even manages to write for established characters with authority. So, Lochley's an ex-junkie. If it wasn't for the prophecy, the idea of Lennier and Mordern together would be a total failure. And Alotov Fagina is back as Adira as well as one of Jerry Doyle's ex's as Dodger.This ep proves that if JMS wan't to write every script, that someone else be allowed to polish the dialogue before shooting begins.
    Too late, the show's over. First Jerry, then Larry, now Baby. Sniff.
    ,
    In the Kingdom of the Blind
    Isn't that the title of a really bad Billy Joel song? Look it's Simon Templar!
    (Ian Ogilvy played Simon Templar in the 1978 TV series Return of the Saint- the one with the cool opening titles of the animated stick figure with halo running around like James Bond). Conitnuity out the window, Day of the Dead was meant to be aired after this but JMS wanted to keep all the heavy ones in a row.
    .
    Cat and Mouse
    Dull as Dishwater. JMS needs a holiday.
    Phoenix Rising
    Slightly better except for the fact it takes Byron two years to die. The chamber is flooding so what to Sheridan and the others do but hang around to listen to Byron's speech, with everyone knowing full well what is going to happen. All the time he's making his speech to Lyta the place is filling with petrol and no one moves! No one's shouting "Oh, Christ! It's the gas is floosing the room and this mad man's got a gun pointed at it." But weren't PPG's supposed to be designed for environments like stations and ships so that they wouldn't puncture hulls like bullets would. Surely they wouldn't be incendiary either?
    The Ragged Edge
    Oh dear. Garibaldi's off the wagon. And I love the way they rationalise the small sets.

    The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father
    What a load of old bollocks. 

    Meditations on the Abyss
    Darkness Ascending
    And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
    JMS has serious problems with giving his shows totally pretentious titles. At least in Star Trek, For the Sky is hollow and I have touched the sky actually described the premise of Yonada pretty well. And they only did it ONCE. 
    Movements of Fire and Shadow
    The Fall of Centauri Prime
    After an entire season of pure dross this is probably the only worthy episode of the season, the only one that's not just a set up  for Sleeping in Light 
     and the only one where anything of any note happens. Day of the Dead was good but this is pure B5 at its best.
    Objects in Motion
    Objects at Rest
    Wheel of Fire
    The last episode is so dull that not even 50 thousand volts could enliven the proceedings.This is almost the end of the arc but by now, nobody cares
    Sleeping in Light
    Filmed as the finale for season four and the series, it still has the quality we expect of the series (and that we have been deprived for all but three shows this season. 
     

     

    TELEMOVIES
    In the Beginning-
    All right, no jokes about 75% new footage. It's really very good at tying up loose ends, not that there were many. It's perhaps too good at that. But there are a few little niggles. Like why Sheridan, Franklin and G'Kar never again referred to their secret mission.Can you see G'Kar being marginalised by Sheridan for so long during the lead-up to the Shadow War if he had helped broker peace between Earth and Minbar?
     The second problem is one of believability. The Earth-Minbari War is depicted here as being more terrible than we had previously been led to believe. The series takes place 10 or so years after the end of the war yet there are so many people between the ages of 30 and 50 (who would have been between 20 and 40 during the war), in uniform. While the Minbari concentrated on taking out the Military, the destruction was almost total, on a par with the slaughter of WWI, a generation of men was lost there and it showed for quite a while. In Babs: The Series, there is no hint of a gap.

    THIRD SPACE
    Not as good as In the beginning nor as bad as crusade, Third Space has an interesting premise ruined only  by a script that is meandering. Shari Belafonte is so irritating as Tate that her scenes are best viewed while reading something. I mean the effects are pretty spectacular but there is a lot of metaphorical stuff that confuses things. A decent episode, no more.

    RIVER OF SOULS
    More like an epilogue to the show that anything else. It's post Sleeping in Light so it doesn't really matter. Babylon 5 has more last endings, epitaphs and epilogues than any other series. Not only do we have a pilot as well as a movie showing us things before the pilot, but we also have Sleeping in Light as the series finale, Wheel of Fire as the last episode made and Decontructing Falling Stars showing the series legacy. It's over.  Enough.
     That said, it's a pretty good episode with proper character development rather than the hokey stuff JMS usually gropes around to find someway of threshing characters in one long scene. Claudia Christian may not be in it but Tracey Scoggins makes a very agreeable pro, er, substitute.

    A CALL TO ARMS
    The very last iteration of Babylon 5. The last filmed instalment of Sheridan and Garibaldi and such a waste to use it to set up Crusade. And not particularly smooth either. The actual story isn't too bad, just the relation to the spin-off series curses the B5 swansong.  Of course, The 5th season of Babylon 5 was highly anticlimatic (not to mention pointless and dull), JMS having written nearly three straight seasons of television singlehandedly, that he could come up with something this watchable is nothing short of a miracle. Of course, this would be the last time for a while.
     
     

    CRUSADE
    Crusade won't be featured as it features so lowly on Stam's Sci Fi scale of Greatness that sea Quest DSV is more likely to be featured on these pages