The universe may have decided to let J. Michael Straczynski have a fifth season of Babylon 5, but it sure wasn't about to make it easy. The negotiations with TNT weren't finished by the time the cast's options were set to expire; most agreed to a short extension, but Claudia Christian chose to let herself become a free agent. When she and Warner Brothers failed to come to terms, Straczynski suddenly found himself without a station commander. To add insult to injury, Straczynski found out about Christian's departure while at a convention - at which the cleaning staff at his hotel dumped his notes and outlines for the beginning of the season. Given all these disruptions, it's not really a surprise that season 5 often has a disjointed feel which disappointed many fans, myself included. Even if things had flowed smoothly, however, I think the basic structure of the season had significant flaws.

For starters, the season's emphasis on "empire-building" seems to be more about creating plot developments for future stories than really exploring the aftermath and denouement of the first four seasons. Characters talk ominously of an impending war between telepaths and normals - but we never see it. We learn of the Asimov that Bester has implanted in Garibaldi's psyche - but we never learn how he gets rid of it. The Drakh reveal a long term plan to target Sheridan, Delenn and their family - but we don't learn how it's resolved. Some of these strands have been covered in spinoff literature, written according to Straczynski's outlines. Had the series ended with Rising Star, I think that would have worked well. But in season 5, Straczynski showed us several guns on the wall, and then failed to fire them within the series itself. Rising Star felt like a point where the story ended; Objects At Rest, the final episode set in 2262, just feels like the point where it abruptly stops.

It also seemed very much like the plot was driving the characters, and not the other way around. The galaxy-reshaping events of seasons 3 and 4 pushed the action and many of the characters off the station. Season 5 feels like it's trying to cram them back together, logic be damned. Garibaldi is supposed to be helping run Edgars Industries, but instead he gets tapped for the nebulous job of running the Interstellar Alliance's intelligence operations - which he does with no staff or operatives of his own, and sharing an office with Zack. The Alliance's main deliberations occur in the old council chamber, with Sheridan presiding in his old chair as usual. But he's in charge of the whole Alliance now, and Earth had no role in selecting him - so who's representing Earth in these discussions? Of course, answering that would require making sense of the bizarre status of the station - it's under the political control of the IA, but an Earth Force officer who reports to the Earth Alliance is in charge of operations. No wonder the telepath crisis ends up being such a mess.

Of course, that crisis wasn't helped along by Sheridan and Lochley losing track of Bester in its climactic episode, Phoenix Rising. That kind of plot-dictated poor decision-making was far from an isolated incident. When the Alliance's inner circle find evidence that the Centauri are involved in attacks on civilian ships, they decide to shut Londo out despite the Centauri's role as a founder of the Alliance. And while they're at it, it never occurs to anyone that an alien race might be trying to use the Centauri to manipulate the races into conflict with each other, despite the fact that they just spent the last four years dealing with that very situation. Sheridan makes Garibaldi the only contact for the Ranger fleet trying to avert an attack on Centauri Prime, and when Garibaldi is conveniently drunk due to his alcoholic relapse - which conveniently no one does anything about until it's too late - there's no backup. And while I thought that the idea of Lennier betraying the Rangers in a moment of weakness had great potential, I still can't fathom how someone of his character would even for a second consider leaving two men to die. Given how hard to series had pushed its message of personal responsibility and individuals having the power to change the world around them, I found the overwhelming feeling of inevitability in this season to be stifling.

For all my complaints, I am still quite glad this season was made. Even though it was on the previous set, the excellent epilogue The Deconstruction Of Falling Stars was produced as part of the fifth season. It was one of several more experimental episodes, many of which succeeded quite well. The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father gives Walter Koenig's Bester a chance to play the central protagonist and offers a look at the B5 universe from another perspective. Day Of The Dead explores a Brakiri religious ritual and allows several long-dead characters another shot at the spotlight. (Written by the very talented Neil Gaiman, it's also the only episode of seasons 3 through 5 not scripted by Straczysnki.) The Very Long Night Of Londo Mollari uses the series' characters to externalize an important internal dialogue for Londo's character arc and makes effective use of the series' past and future. These episodes are easily my favorite of the season. One other experiment, A View From The Gallery, was not quite as successful in my mind; while I liked the idea of telling a story from the point of view of minor station personnel, the script had too many metafictional in-jokes and coincidental meetings with series regulars for my tastes.

And of course, there's Sleeping In Light. I commented on this episode in a couple of editorials on the site back when it aired, and my feelings about it remain largely the same. I think Bruce Boxleitner and Mira Furlan did some of their best and most powerful acting in this episode, giving Sheridan a dignified and heart-wrenching sendoff. It is a very strong series finale, and in truth I probably would find the purchase of the set justified for it alone.

The extras on this set are actually a little disappointing. Straczynski's commentaries on The Fall Of Centauri Prime and Sleeping In Light are among his best, entertaining and dealing with the feelings that series' end brought on. And Boxleitner, Patricia Tallman, Peter Jurasik and Tracy Scoggins are entertaining enough on their group commentary for Movements Of Fire And Shadow. (Yes, I know I haven't really mentioned Scoggins' Captain Lochley in this review. Truth be told, I have no strong thoughts on her, especially in this season. I'm not sure how much Straczynski ever got a handle on the character at this point, and that gave Scoggins a thankless task.) The documentaries, on the other hand, bug me.

The documentary on the series' effects manages to completely fail to mention any of the folks from Foundation Imaging who helped originate the series' look and provided the effects for the series' first three seasons. It also has pretty much no making-of footage or demonstrations, unlike the Ta'Lon makeup featurette from season 3. And the documentary on the series' fans was a real disappointment, although I suppose I have a vested interest in that. I was at the 2003 Comic-Con International in San Diego, where Straczynski's hour-long Q&A session was filmed for the documentary. I was also one of at least a dozen fans who participated in interviews about the series with the documentary producers. Each interview was probably 5 to 10 minutes long, with a number of good questions, and I heard many fans give thoughtful answers to these questions. The documentary makes used only a few snippets of those replies, and I think about 30 seconds total from the Q&A. Mostly the featurette had more interview clips with Straczynski and the actors talking about how much they appreciated the fans. That's nice, but not really informative. Not only was the material from the convention underused, there was no mention of the role of fan websites like the Lurker's Guide or the interaction between Straczynski and fans on the moderated B5 Usenet newsgroup, although three of the fans behind those efforts are thanked by name in the credits. This may sound like sour grapes, but I just feel like there was a missed opportunity here.

The set also includes a gag reel, a few minutes' worth of scenes cut from Sleeping In Light, and an Easter egg devoted to the eternal question - "Marcus Cole: Dead or Frozen?" Since Marcus is one of my favorite characters (and another thing year 5 sorely missed), I got a kick out this. The fans in San Diego gave their votes; you can see the final tally (along with a shot of your humble reviewer) in the screen caps below. Richard Biggs, Tallman, and Jason Carter add their two cents, but as always the final word goes to Straczynski.

At any rate, it is a worthwhile season and a worthwhile box set, but not up to the standard of previous seasons.

Reviewed by Dave Thomer
theLogBook.com Assistant Editor