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By
WAYNE KLEIN
Politics slowly poisons an
action series if the show gets caught in the murky
depths of politics itself. Luckily "Babylon 5"'s
fifth season avoided this pitfall. After the
massive Shadow War that dominated seasons three
and four, all was still not well on the massive
space station. That's good news for fans of
thoughtful science fiction. Captain Sheridan was
pressured to resign during the conclusion of
season four. He emerged during the same episode as
the nominee for President of the Interstellar
Alliance which guaranteed continued conflict among
the various players from seasons three and four.
In drama the only thing better than conflict is
down and dirty conflict and we got that during
season five.
Season five opens with John Sheridan's (Bruce
Boxleitner) inauguration and an assassination plot
brewing on the station. Newly arrived Captain
Lochley (Tracy Scoggins) takes command of the
station from Sheridan and is immediately asked for
sanctuary from a group of powerful telepaths who
are being hunted down by Psi-Corp the league of
telepaths. Much of what appears in the first
episode sets up a series of story arcs that occur
over the last twenty-two episodes of the show's
last season.
Although the series couldn't quite recapture the
energy of the previous two seasons, J. Michael
Straczynski's creation still went out on a high
note with 22 quality episodes focusing on the
fracturing alliance between Earth and other alien
worlds. The story arc involving renegade telepaths
might have seemed smaller in scope than the war
that dominated much of the series but the smaller
scope benefited the last season in many ways.
Straczynski's scripts focused on the characters
and the inner demons that drove them. Lyta
Alexander (Patricia Tallman) who played a much
smaller role during season three finally came into
her own with the story arc about the telepaths.
Tallman gives a series of beautifully nuanced
performances as Lyta Alexander throughout the
season. Many of the loose ends of the previous
seasons were tied as well adding ballast to some
of the other politic heavy episodes favored during
the year.
The introduction of Tracy Scoggins to replace the
departing Claudia Christiansen gave the series a
nice boost in the energy level. Scoggins played
Captain Lochley as fiercely as Boxleitner had
Captain Sheridan in previous seasons. She often
disagree with Sheridan ( she had been briefly
married to Sheridan as well which added fire to
the fuel between them) but always tried to take
the moral higher ground regardless of her personal
beliefs. It's a pity that Scoggins wasn't
introduced earlier as she's a very talented
actress that can command the big and small screen.
With considerable power.
The series finale "Objects at Rest" (actually shot
during season four just in case the series wasn't
renewed) stands as one of those rare moments in
the history of a series where the material equaled
the best moments of previous seasons. Straczynski
proved his point as well about science fiction on
television; "Babylon 5" became every bit the rich
character driven powerhouse as the Trek franchise
during its five year run. Much credit has to go to
Straczynski himself as he wrote the bulk of the
episodes for all five seasons (and during one
season wrote all 22 episodes -- a first for
dramatic television).
The picture quality varies from sparkling to drab
depending upon the individual episodes. The
variation isn't as extreme as it was for the last
two sets (where you could run from one extreme to
another within the same episode). While the
transfer for the optical effects have improved,
they still suffer from a fuzziness and lower
resolution when compared to much of the live
action footage. Much of this is due, again, to the
fact that the images for the opticals weren't
directly remastered from the source material.
Still, it's clear that Warner has been listening
to fan complaints about the previous sets.
The sound quality remains high throughout most of
the set. There's occasional issues with muffled
dialogue and the like but, on the whole, the sound
comes across crystal clear. Although it's not a
perfect presentation (what could be with 4
episodes per disc using all that bit space does
limit the presentation), "Babylon 5: The
Fifth Season" compares favorably to "Star Trek
Voyager" and other similar series.
"B5" seasons one through four created new high
standards for series boxed set extras and season
five is no disappointment either. We get a great
introduction to the episode "Wheel of Fire" by
Straczynski. One of the best featurettes "Digital
Tomorrow" focuses on the optical effects created
for the series with rare, behind the scenes
footage of the digital creation of the B5 Universe
and interviews with the supervising effects crew.
The effects co-coordinators, Straczynski,
producers Douglas Netter and John Copeland discuss
the difficulty in achieving the distinctive look
of the show on a syndicated series budget. We also
see many of the key effects sequences throughout
all five seasons and are reminded that, in many
respects, "B5" broke new ground for the use of
digital effects. While "Trek" and even "DS9" were
relying more heavily on model work, "B5"
economically helped create a vast universe on an
itty-bitty budget compared to the Trek shows.
There's also a nicely done featurette that focuses
on the series' fans and their reaction to the
show. Interviews with fans, cast members and
writer/creator/producer Straczynski provide us
with a glimpse of how fandom kept the show alive
when the odds (and TV Guide's Jeff Jarvis)
predicted the show would fail. We get a glimpse
into some of the merchandise related to the show
as well. One new extra is the inclusion of a
section that has deleted and/or extended scenes.
This new feature expands on the wonderful extras
included in previous editions.. "The Universe of
Babylon 5" focuses once more on the personnel
files of the various characters with footage from
the series. The Data Files continues to providing
enlightening details about the background of the
various alien races and situations that have
occurred in other seasons. We also get an amusing
"Gag Reel" and the Easter Egg "Dead or Alive?"
about Ranger Marcus Cole who perished during the
conclusion of season four saving the life of
Commander Ivana. The cast, crew and fans weigh in
on whether Marcus' character died or was frozen
for revival at a later date. The "Easter Egg" can
be found under the Data Files section by scrolling
up to the prominent 5 logo and pressing the enter
key once.
The inclusion of the "teasers" for forthcoming
episodes continues to set "B5" apart from the
crowd. It also gives a brief overview of the
episode which is handy if you don't recall what
happened in which episode. They're also fun in
their own melodramatic way. The booklet once again
gives a brief synopsis of each episode and the key
production crew/cast that is featured in each one.
Again, this has been an area where the Trek sets
have been sorely lacking. Although many wouldn't
consider the packaging to be an "extra" I do
prefer the "book" style packaging of "B5" to the
latest packaging of "Star Trek Voyager" and the
fold out accordion style favored by Fox for many
of their DVD sets. Their easier to use, access and
you don't have to unfold the whole darn set to get
to the last disc.
Commentary Once again the producers of "B5" have
outdone themselves with two commentary tracks by
creator J. Michael Straczynski and one commentary
track by Boxleitner, Tallman, Jurasik and
Scoggins. The latter commentary improves on the
party atmosphere of the previous two cast
commentaries. It's professional enough to follow
but it's still clear that they are having a damn
fine time. If you haven't seen the episodes that
J. Michael Straczynksi provides commentary for,
you may want to watch the episodes first without
his take on things. His intelligent, articulate
comments provide an example of how well thought
out many of the plot points were during the five
year run. He also admits that on occasion he had
to wing it when things didn't turn out quite as he
had planned (as with the departure of Claudia
Christiansen during season four and the
replacement of Michael O'Hare during season two).
The cast commentary means its party time again.
They razz each other repeatedly, make sarcastic
comments about their own (and others) performances
and generally have a blast. Although it isn't as
informative as Straczynski's commentaries, they're
a lot of fun to listen to. It's like having
members of the cast watching the episode with you.
There are, of course, times when you want them to
shut up but, being a polite host, you'll let them
ramble on.
Another outstanding job from the producers of "B5"
and Warner, season five closes out the series in
high style. With the announcement of another boxed
set for the prequel, pilot and other movies made
for Sci-Fi after the series concluded and the
possibility that the short lived "Crusade" may be
coming to DVD as well offers more promising
nuggets from the Straczynski and the producers of
this fine boxed set. |
