Babylon 5: The Complete Second Season
Babylon 5’s second season was much more consistent than its first. After weathering the change in commanders from Michael O’Hare’s Jeffrey Sinclair to Bruce Boxleitner’s John Sheridan, the cast and crew manage to find a new level of performance. While creator J. Michael Straczynski was ramping up the series’ fabled arc in episodes like The Coming of Shadows and The Fall of Night, there was still room for Peter David, D.C. Fontana, Scott Frost and Lawrence DiTillio to offer other perspectives on the characters and life on the station. It’s a very satisfying mix that works well in a full-season box set that also boasts some worthwhile and entertaining extras.
When my soon-to-be college roommate first made me watch B5, I think my first full thought was, “Hey, look, Scarecrow’s in charge of the station!” Today I’m a little bit embarrassed at that reaction, since the episode in question was the Hugo-winning Coming Of Shadows. In fairness, there’s no way that I as a new viewer could appreciate how well that episode turned the status quo from the series premiere on its head. And as Straczynski points out during one of his episode commentaries, he was counting on Boxleitner invoking that kind of reaction, so that the emotional wringer that Sheridan would go though over the next four years would have just a little more oomph. I have to say it worked; while I do think that Sheridan was just a little too fond of blowing things straight to hell, I enjoyed his relationship with the other crew members and the subplots that run through this second season, as everyone tries to figure out exactly where the new guy’s loyalties are.
This season also included what may be my favorite episode of the series, Comes The Inquisitor. Sebastian’s relentless focus on identity, on finding and understanding the unique something that makes us the individuals we are, takes the kind of philosophical musings that characterize my day job and wraps them in 
compelling drama. There’s little in the way of fancy effects or spectacular action in this episode, but it works. Of course, the next episode, season-ender The Fall Of Night, more than makes up for the action deficit with a full-on battle between the station and a Centauri warship and the dramatic revelation of Kosh’s appearance. These two episodes transformed me from a casual watcher of the series to a dedicated fan, and it’s nice to be able to rewatch them at my leisure almost eight years later.
The stand-alone episodes are generally worthwhile here, whether they came from Straczynski (the well-done Confessions and Lamentations or And Now For A Word, for example) or others - I particularly enjoyed David’s Soul Mates on reviewing. One of the engaging things about this season is that even while the Shadow War comes closer, there are still a number of episodes that reflect the station’s attempts to support itself and serve as a diplomatic hub for any number of races. Opportunities for smaller, character-focused stories like Londo’s divorce would dwindle as the series progressed, and while I can’t say I regret that, it’s nice to have a few solid stand-alones here.
The extras on this set are good - nothing extraordinary, but they add value to the package. There was no equivalent to the first season’s “Making of Babylon 5″ documentary shot during year two, so this set features two interview-driven documentaries and expands the introduction to include most of the cast and many of the crew. The interview clips are nice, albeit not terribly detailed. The “Building Babylon: Anatomy of an Episode” has a number of cast reflections, but I wish it could have included comments from some of the series’ directors, or composer Chris Franke, or even the effects and makeup folks. As it is, it feels a little incomplete. And “Shadows and Dreams: Honors of Babylon” pretty much focuses on the series’ two Hugo Awards; while those are certainly worthwhile achievements, the documentary doesn’t quite live up to its title.
Straczynski once again comments on two episodes - Fall Of Night and In The Shadow Of Z’ha’dum - and once again entertains with his obsessive-compulsive combination of justified pride in his work and self-deprecation. It’s also worthwhile to hear his thoughts on how the events of the season, especially the rise of the Night Watch, serve to comment on recent history and indeed on current events. On quite another end of the spectrum is the cast commentary on The Geometry Of Shadows, with Boxleitner, Claudia Christian and Jerry Doyle. Christian and Doyle in particular are utterly irreverent as they joke with each other throughout the episode, and Boxleitner joins in the fun even as he (sometimes desperately) tries to offer some insights into the series. What interests me most about the commentary is getting the chance to hear, at length, about the show from a perspective other than Straczynski’s. The actors share a few laughs about the series’ sometimes-cumbersome dialogue, point out how unusual it was for the production to run so smoothly compared to other series, and even offer a few criticisms. Boxleitner earns my eternal gratitude for expressing a bit of surprise and a distinct lack of fondness for the married-to-Lochley revelation of season 5, for example.
A few notes for the technically inclined: this set uses the widescreen masters first developed for the Sci Fi Channel’s re-airing of the show. The picture quality is sometimes a little fuzzy, the composite and CGI shots have been cropped from the 4:3 originals, and the opening credits and within-episode subtitles have been redone to replace the original Serpentine font with the River Of Souls-era Hansen. Why on Earth the series producers would want to make the show look more like Deep Space Nine, I have no idea, but hey, that’s their call. Whatever technical deficiencies the set may have, I sure enjoy the hell out of the story, and that’s what matters.