Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Babylon 5: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

1993 'til infinity.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III December 17, 2023

Carving out a stellar run of episodes during a decade loaded with small-screen science fiction, J. Michael Straczynski's seminal Babylon 5 was the first show of its kind to fully embrace serialized storytelling. Envisioned by Warner Bros. as the team captain of their brand-new Prime Time Entertainment Network, this forward-thinking series was preceded by a test pilot film ("The Gathering") in February 1993 and would finally launch the following year and continue for five full-length seasons. Unlike most productions during this era, Straczynski wrote Babylon 5 in a long-form novel format with each of its individually-titled seasons acting as "chapters" from the full story. This bold creative decision paid dividends: passionate fans embraced the show's diverse characters, rich mythology, and daring detours, all while establishing a community of support on the then-new World Wide Web. You know, back when only us nerds were allowed on.

Full disclosure: although I was a massive fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation at the time (whose seventh and final season concluded only four months after Babylon 5's first season aired), I never counted myself among its fans during the original run. Perhaps my high-school brain wasn't quite ready for B5's sophisticated style of long-form storytelling, or maybe I balked at some of its obvious similarities to TNG -- and of course Deep Space Nine, a similar "space station series" that began in 1993 -- and blew it off as a store-brand copycat of one or both. Either way, big mistake: while it certainly takes plenty of cues from the house that Roddenberry built, Babylon 5 is a different beast altogether and, when I finally wised up years later, I was able to more fully embrace its obvious and lasting charms.

In fact, had I watched more than a few episodes or bothered to scan the credits, I might've noticed how deep of a respectful connection to Star Trek -- mostly by way of the original 1960s series -- actually existed here. An episode directed by Adam Nimoy, son of Leonard? Check. A few scripts and creative contributions by Harlan Ellison and D.C. Fontana? Double check. Guest appearances by Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett, and Robin Curtis? Triple check.

But these similarities and many others were already endlessly dissected (and mostly put to bed) during the decade in which Babylon 5 aired. The main reason for its initial impact and staying power during these last three decades is the strength of the material itself: J. Michael Straczynski wrote more than 90 of the series' 110 episodes, which is itself a vastly different approach than the typical "revolving door" of creators that tends to give most TV shows and seasons, regardless of genre, something of a patchwork quality. It's true that Babylon 5's first season didn't immediately find a comfortable groove but soon settled into place; Seasons 2, 3, and 4 tightened the vision and focus to create a truly compelling space opera, but its debut year resorted to more basic dynamics and curious detours that collectively aren't great but certainly watchable in their own right. I mean, it's at least better than TNG's first season.

Although it eventually finds its way towards tight serialization as the first season progresses, there are obvious signs of focused world-building and key references to previous events as early as the first several episodes. This rewards careful attention from viewers and makes Babylon 5 anything but "background noise" even early in its lifespan; it's clear that a lot of time and attention went into each script as well as the first season as a whole, even if members of the cast and crew were still settling in. One thing that this season doesn't do consistently well is balance a compelling "B" story with the main plot: these secondary narratives feel like afterthoughts more often than not, meaning that viewer enjoyment will hinge more fully on the main subject at hand. Yet this is eventually smoothed over soon enough and leads to the beginning of Babylon 5's engaging middle portion (Seasons 2-4) that would see the introduction of fresh characters, huge revelations, and slow-burn stories that pay off much later down the line. This formula was B5's bread and butter and, for die-hard fans, the primary reason why it's endured so strongly during the last three decades.

Season 2 inarguably felt different due to a changing of the guard, which was done for reasons finally revealed in 2013: after the reassignment of Babylon 5's original commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare), new leader John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) takes charge and follows a theory that the climactic first-season death of a political leader may have been an assassination. Although many Season 1 episodes featured political narratives, its renewed center-stage focus makes a difference in its overall tone and engagement level. Other new threats emerge or further develop as well: the "Shadows" (an ancient race of insect-like creatures), the Psi Corps (basically, government-run telepathic police) and even other branches of Earth's ruling class, which gradually become more xenophobic and authoritarian.

These narrative elements only scratch the surface of what Babylon 5 brings to the table during its best seasons but interpersonal relationships are a major factor as well, from individual characters and groups aboard the titular space station to entire races at large. It's an overwhelmingly focused and entertaining run of episodes and only offers further proof that the series overall plot was written well in advance rather than being made up on the fly. Only a last-minute cancellation scare during the end of B5's fourth season forced Straczynski to hastily rewrite that year's finale as a series conclusion before it was nabbed by Turner Network Television for its originally planned fifth and final leg.

Babylon 5 ends as it started: slightly uneven and with too many detours, but the difference is that its fifth season is less of a scrappy attempt at subverting the more sterile, straightforward universe of TNG (mostly the earlier seasons) and its predecessor. The show's heavily dystopian aesthetic, which applies as much to its unique visuals, costumes, and production design as the constant presence of interpersonal conflicts, gives it a truly of-the-moment vibe that's aged better than expected. It gets lots of things presumably right: tensions between tribes will probably always exist, people may still be paying for healthcare in the 23rd century, and -- as evidenced by chief security officer Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) -- we may never truly find a cure for male pattern baldness. In contrast, it only got a few things wrong earlier than expected... like the fact that newspapers barely exist now, let alone in another 200 years.

For what it is, and based on the strengths of its inarguably near-flawless three-season run during the middle years, Babylon 5 remains a truly well-crafted, groundbreaking, and influential show that likely made "the competition" work that much harder just to keep up. Its inarguable strengths are sometimes contrasted -- and occasionally even kind of supported -- by a few unique elements, such as a reliance on now-terribly dated CG rather than model work and its sometimes unintentional brand of campiness, which is perhaps unavoidable in the world of forward-thinking science fiction but at leased smoothed over slightly by sporadic doses of well-placed humor. Simply put, for all of its warranted or unearned comparisons to Trek contemporaries like TNG, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, there's simply nothing else quite like Babylon 5 and that, more than anything else, is why it still manages to stand out in a crowd.

Tragically, a number of notable cast members have passed away since Babylon 5's original run including Jerry Doyle (Garibaldi), Andreas Katsulas (Narn Ambassador G'Kar, as well as Romulan Commander Tomalak on TNG -- yet another Trek connection), Stephen Furst (Centauri diplomatic attaché Vir Cotto), Mira Furlan (Minbari Ambassador Delenn), Michael O’Hare (Season 1 commander Jeffrey Sinclair), Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin), Jeff Conaway (security officer Zack Allan), and Tim Choate (Zathras). Some of the more prominent roles were tastefully reassigned on Warner Bros.' recent animated film Babylon 5: The Road Home, not available in this set but a worthy companion piece.

For everything that is included in this surprisingly compact collection, keep reading.

Episode List

This 21-disc set includes all 110 series episodes in their original broadcast order as well as the 1993 test pilot movie "The Gathering". Please note that this order did not match the intentions of series creator and head writer J. Michael Straczynski; for alternate viewing options (which include several B5 made-for-TV movies not included in this collection) suggested by him and more vocal members of the Babylon 5 fan community, head on over to this sub-section of "The Babylon Project". It also includes detailed synopses for the below content as well as more information about the cast, crew, characters, settings, novels, and more. And at the risk of providing too many rabbit-hole detours, do yourself a favor and also check out "The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5", a still-active fansite online since friggin' 1995.

Season One: "Signs and Portents"

DISC ONE (Episodes 1-5)
"Midnight on the Firing Line", "Soul Hunter", "Born to the Purple", "Infection", "The Parliament of Dreams"

DISC TWO (Episodes 6-11)
"Mind War", "The War Prayer", "And the Sky Full of Stars", "Deathwalker", "Believers", "Survivors"

DISC THREE (Episodes 12-16)
"By Any Means Necessary", "Signs and Portents", "TKO", "Grail", "Eyes", "Legacies"

DISC FOUR (Episodes 17-22)
"A Voice in the Wilderness (Parts 1 and 2)", "Babylon Squared", "The Quality of Mercy", "Chrysalis"

Season Two: "The Coming of Shadows"

DISC ONE (Episodes 1-5)
"Points of Departure", "Revelations", "The Geometry of Shadows", "A Distant Star", "The Long Dark"

DISC TWO (Episodes 6-11)
"Spider in the Web", "Soul Mates", "A Race Through Dark Places", "The Coming of Shadows", "GROPOS", "All Alone in the Night"

DISC THREE (Episodes 12-17)
"Acts of Sacrifice", "Hunter, Prey", "There All the Honor Lies", "And Now for a Word", "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum", "Knives"

DISC FOUR (Episodes 18-22)
"Confessions and Lamentations", "Divided Loyalties", "The Long, Twilight Struggle", "Comes the Inquisitor", "The Fall of Night"

Season Three: "Point of No Return"

DISC ONE (Episodes 1-5)
"Matters of Honor", "Convictions", "A Day in the Strife", "Passing Through Gethsemane", "Voices of Authority"

DISC TWO (Episodes 6-11)
"Dust to Dust", "Exogenesis", "Messages from Earth", "Point of No Return", "Severed Dreams", "Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

DISC THREE (Episodes 12-17)
"Sic Transit Vir", "A Late Delivery from Avalon", "Ship of Tears", "Interludes and Examinations", "War Without End (Parts 1 and 2)"

DISC FOUR (Episodes 18-22)
"Walkabout", "Grey 17 Is Missing", "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place", "Shadow Dancing", "Z'ha'dum"

Season Four: "No Surrender, No Retreat"

DISC ONE (Episodes 1-5)
"The Hour of the Wolf", "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?", "The Summoning", "Falling Toward Apotheosis", "The Long Night"

DISC TWO (Episodes 6-11)
"Into the Fire", "Epiphanies", "The Illusion of Truth", "Atonement", "Racing Mars", "Lines of Communication"

DISC THREE (Episodes 12-17)
"Conflicts of Interest", "Rumors, Bargains and Lies", "Moments of Transition", "No Surrender, No Retreat", "The Exercise of Vital Powers", "The Face of the Enemy"

DISC FOUR (Episodes 18-22)
"Intersections in Real Time", "Between the Darkness and the Light", "Endgame", "Rising Star", "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars"

Season Five: "The Wheel of Fire"

DISC ONE (Episodes 1-5)
"No Compromises", "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari", "The Paragon of Animals", "A View from the Gallery", "Learning Curve"

DISC TWO (Episodes 6-11)
"Strange Relations", "Secrets of the Soul", "Day of the Dead", "In the Kingdom of the Blind", "A Tragedy of Telepaths", "Phoenix Rising"

DISC THREE (Episodes 12-17)
"The Ragged Edge", "The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father", "Meditations on the Abyss", "Darkness Ascending", "And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder", "Movements of Fire and Shadow"

DISC FOUR (Episodes 18-22)
"The Fall of Centauri Prime", "The Wheel of Fire", "Objects in Motion", "Objects at Rest", "Sleeping in Light"

Babylon 5: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original 1.33:1 broadcast aspect ratio, Babylon 5 looks generally impressive on Blu-ray with a few (sometimes unavoidable) exceptions. First of all, this is no Star Trek: The Next Generation; while most of Babylon 5 was originally shot on Super 35 film and recent HD masters were created for streaming on Max (which is what these Blu-rays were sourced from), occasional portions of footage -- more often than not, anything seen in space -- were rendered as low-resolution CGI. Those new to the series, or anyone who hasn't seen it in a decade or more, may have trouble adjusting to the alternating shots of generally crisp, detailed interior shots and spaceship fly-bys that resemble a PlayStation 2 cutscene. This was even a problem when Babylon 5 first arrived on DVD more than two decades ago, but for different reasons: back then, the filmed footage was presented in 1.85:1 (as it was shot "safe" for widescreen) and those already-gnarly CGI scenes were hastily zoomed and cropped to fit. Within such unique boundaries, this seems like the lesser of two evils and, short of a ground-up reconstruction, the only sensible choice.

The good news is that your eyes will eventually adjust and, unsurprisingly, the quality of the CG elements improves as Babylon 5 progresses. But even within source limitations there are a lot of small encoding-related anomalies here such as shimmering, aliasing, and moiré patterns, all of which can likewise be distracting at times. (Whether or not these elements could have been better-handled on Blu-ray is up for debate as I'm not intimately familiar with the show's appearance on streaming, but at the very least these shots aren't panned and scanned like the DVDs.)

On a related note are the sporadic live-action shots where CG elements and other effects are used in the background; these are all similarly upscaled from the older DVD-era masters and understandably look a bit rough, but luckily aren't too frequent. Many brief shots not paired with effects are also upscaled, likely due to missing original film elements; these run the gamut from forgivable (lower-res and a bit waxy) to fairly distracting, such as a few moments that suffer from stuttering frame-rate issues. Again, I'll give B5's restoration team the benefit of the doubt, but I'd be interested in hearing from someone much more familiar with the show's visual history as to why these hiccups exist.

Luckily, the remaining footage -- which represents the wide, wide majority of Babylon 5's visuals -- looks very good. Warner Bros. reportedly re-scanned the original Super 35 camera negatives in 4K and then downscaled them back to HD (1080p) after a round of color correction and clean-up to erase most instances of dirt and debris. Fine detail, black levels, and color saturation are all well-represented and a siazable step up from DVD, allowing die-hard fans to more fully appreciate the costumes, makeup, and production design. Contrast levels are likewise excellent with supportive shadow detail and an overall smooth but unprocessed appearance that sports a decent level of film grain, which varies depending on light levels. As mentioned earlier, these Blu-rays were all sourced from the recent HD masters created for streaming so, if you've already seen them on that platform, I imagine the roomier real estate of dual-layered Blu-rays yields a more fluid, detailed, dense, and stable appearance overall. Only trace encoding hiccups can be picked up here and there (usually on discs where six episodes have been included rather than five, because every gigabyte counts), as well as subtle flickering during one or two darker scenes during a pair of early episodes. Keeping these sporadic and sometimes unavoidable problems in mind, though, this is still certainly the best that Babylon 5 will likely ever look on any format for quite some time... even if my "soft" 4/5 rating is perhaps rounded up by a quarter-point.

Babylon 5: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Luckily, the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mixes are more consistent in their overall level of quality, with series composer (and Tangerine Dream alumnus) Christopher Franke's operatic score enjoying some of its most striking and impactful moments during those low-resolution CG establishing shots. (Those interested in more details regarding the composer's work on B5 and elsewhere should check out the website "Music of Babylon 5", which includes a short embedded DVD-era featurette.) Elsewhere, Babylon 5 typically plays it straight from a sonic perspective, with primarily front-forward dialogue and occasional surround activity in the form of crowd noise, echoes, specific environments, and sporadic action sequences. It's not the most active soundstage, even considering some of the subject matter, with this lossless 5.1 mix sounding like a naturally beefier and slightly more dynamic version of the DVDs' no-frills Dolby Digital surround tracks. It's perfectly fine audio under the circumstances, even if a few more sonic flourishes wouldn't have hurt.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles have been included during all episodes and the bonus feature below.

Babylon 5: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

But first, a word about cutting corners: This 20-disc set ships in some of the least user-friendly packaging you'll find outside of a Mill Creek set: it's essentially six flimsy plastic trays with two overlapping hubs on each "page" that sit loosely inside an DVD-height clamshell case. At first glance it looks simple and space-saving, but the "spine" connecting the interior trays is extremely brittle and can easily come loose or crack during shipment. (My set was packaged fairly securely in a box and still needed minor surgery after opening, so good luck if you get one in a bubble mailer.) To make matters worse, the disc art only identifies each season number (i.e. "Season 1, Disc 3") with no episode names, only a collective list of them all on the interior splash art. This might be fine for a marathon, but not so much if you want to find a specific episode. (See above for help with that.) It's bargain-bin treatment and, though understandable given the bargain price, I'd imagine die-hard fans would've gladly paid an extra $10-20 for actually good packaging.

Oh, and the bonus features? Practically zero. No DVD-era audio commentaries, featurettes, documentaries, or of course the five made-for-TV movies produced between 1998 and 2002. This is probably even more disappointing than the bad packaging, as fans will have to retain all those bulky DVD sets just for for the legacy content.

• Babylon 5: The Gathering (88:02) - The only actual extra here is this 1993 test pilot written by J. Michael Straczynski with direction by Richard Compton. Originally airing on February 22 of that year -- a full 11 months before the Season 1 premiere -- it's a decent start to Babylon 5 and might as well be watched right at the very beginning. As far as I know, this pilot's only other home video appearance was on Warner Bros.' appropriately-titled Babylon 5: The Movie Collection set, which also includes the first four television movies mentioned above. (The fifth, 2002's The Legend of the Rangers, was a failed spin-off pilot that's available on DVD from the ever-reliable Warner Archive.) Sitting all the way at the back on Disc 21, The Gathering might normally fit in smoothly with the rest of the recently-restored content... but sadly is nowhere near the video quality of the series proper. This feature-length episode is upscaled from an old master and uniformly cropped (even the old DVD presented it in 4x3) with DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio. It's almost the opposite of the regular episodes in that the CG-rendered elements actually play a little better while all those live-action clips look much, much worse.

• Babylon 5: The Road Home Trailer (1:30) - Also included on Disc 21 is this short promotional piece for the recent (and actually pretty good) animated film, available separately on Blu-ray and 4K UHD.

Babylon 5: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

J. Michael Straczynski's Babylon 5 is perhaps one of the finest non-Star Trek sci-fi endeavors created for television, regardless of decade, and for some it sits at the very top. I was at least a decade late to the party but had absolutely no problems appreciating its attention to rich, long-form storytelling, even if the first season is admittedly hit-or-miss. From there, Babylon 5 enjoys an almost unprecedented winning streak for the remainder of its cumulative 110-episode run and, like the DVD and streaming versions before it, what better way to watch than non-stop from beginning to end? Warner Bros. gave die-hard fans two nice surprises this year: the animated coda The Road Home (with perhaps more to come) as well as the announcement of this complete series Blu-ray set. But while portions of its new HD remaster could use a bit of fine-tuning, the extras are almost non-existent, and the packaging is beyond cheap, I doubt any physical media-buying fan of Babylon 5 will be passing this up at such a reasonable price point.