Babylon 5

1 9 9 4 – 1 9 9 8  (USA)
110 x 45 minute episodes

It is the year 2258 AD. After decades of interplanetary conflict between the five major solar systems – the Earth Alliance, the Minbari Federation, Narn Regime, Vorlon Empire and the Centauri Republic – a fragile peace is overseen by a council of humans and aliens which sits aboard the lone space station Babylon 5.

This five-mile-long, 2.5 million tons of metal is commanded by Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare) – later replaced by Captain John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) – who is also the Earth Alliance representative on the council.

The other chief council members are Ambassador G’Kar of the Narn (Andreas Katsulas), fan-haired Ambassador Londo Mollari of the once-great Centauri (Peter Jurasik), mysterious Ambassador Kosh Naranek of the Vorlon Empire (Ardwright Chamberlain) – who was eventually revealed to be an angel-type being beneath his protective encounter suit – and bald female Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari (Mira Furlan), who forms romantic attachments with both Sinclair and Sheridan.

The space station was home to 250,000 beings from different worlds and was large enough to accommodate many diverse neighbourhoods, including affluent areas for well-to-do inhabitants and slums for the less fortunate beings who lived on the station.

Conceived by Joseph Michael Straczynski as a televisual novel, complete with beginning, middle and end, B5 was the thinking person’s sci-fi drama of the 1990s, replete with allegory (including the civil wars in Yugoslavia), plot and deeply drawn characters.

Those with their brains switched off found much to mesmerise them in Ron Thornton’s computer-generated SFX.

In accordance with the promise from Straczynski (who retained auteur-like control over the programme) to provide constant narrative surprise, season two culminated in a star war between the Narn Regime and the Centauri, the latter triumphing after allying themselves with the evil Shadows, a species amassing predatorily at the edge of the universe.

Henceforth, the role of Babylon 5, under the guiding hand of Captain John Sheridan, changed from the ‘last, best hope for peace’ to ‘our last, best hope for victory’.

Babylon 5′ s last original episode served as an epitaph for the series. It took place in 2281, twenty years after Sheridan’s reanimation on the Shadow homeworld. Sheridan, knowing he was dying, got his old Babylon 5 gang back together for a final dinner and reminiscences at his home on Minbari.

Among the show’s suitably stellar guest cast were David McCallum, Walter Koenig (Star Trek) and Bill Mumy, formerly Will Robinson of Lost In Space.

Commander Jeffrey Sinclair
Michael O’Hare
Captain John Sheridan
Bruce Boxleitner
Ambassador Delenn
Mira Furlan
Ambassador Londo Mollari
Peter Jurasik
Security Chief Garbaldi
Jerry Doyle
Ambassador G’Kar
Andreas Katsulas
Kosh
Ardwright Chamberlain
Lt Commander Susan Ivanova
Claudia Christian
Talia Winters
Andrea Thompson
Dr Stephen Franklin
Richard Biggs
Carn Mollari
Peter Trencher
Lyta Alexander
Patricia Tallman
Marcus Cole
Jason Carter
Lennier
Bill Mumy
Na’Toth
June Caitlin Brown (1)
Mary K Adams (2)
Vir Cotto
Stephen Furst