Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Babylon 5: The Complete First Season

Babylon 5: The Complete First Season
Babylon 5 is, perhaps, one of the best science fiction television series ever made. Set aboard a space station that is supposed to be a neutral meeting place for representatives of numerous warring alien races (including humans), the look of the series is dark and gritty. The characters all have multiple shadings -- the heroes all have serious failings, and the "villains" are often given logical and believable reasons for behaving as they do. The acting is superb, from the main cast to the vast array of supporting roles. The series was designed to last 5 seasons, and had an overall story "arc". Circumstances forced the producers to shorten their five-year story plan into four years, but then a fifth season was ordered, allowing the writers to go beyond the "end point" that they had set up, to see what kind of ramifications resulted from the events at the end of season four. This Season One set gives a good introduction to the main characters, and the bureaucracy and politics that all the regulars have to deal with day-in and day-out. Standout performances are Peter Jurasik as Ambassador Londo, the late Andreas Katsulas as G'Kar, and Mira Furlan as Ambassador Delenn. The set design was also impressive, but it is the special effects that will truly blow you away. One fair warning...be prepared to watch all five seasons if you enjoy this one, because the story keeps building and building. Television science fiction at its best! -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[Also available: Several original novels based on Babylon 5 -- which you can find on our TV Tie-Ins booklist ]
[ Internet Movie Database page for this series ] [ official Babylon 5 British web site ] [ highly detailed Wikipedia entry on Babylon 5 ]

Have you seen this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I LOVED Babylon 5!!

I didn't know the library had these. Thanks for giving us SciFi fans a much needed fix! I see you have the five full seasons -- do you plan to buy the TV-Movies as well, 'cause there's several of them too?