I finished the first season of Babylon 5 last Friday, and so thought I’d try to jot down a few words about it. I’ve done my best to avoid any spoilers, and I like to think that there’s not many of them, and that the few that are, are so vague that they’re hardly spoilers at all, really.

A nice place to begin this little review might be the main concept, the premise. Babylon 5 is a space station orbiting an uninhabited planet in a neutral sector of space. It’s intended to be a place where the different races can meet, in order to work out their differences and such things. In other words, ultimately the manifestation of the Liberalist idea of interconnection as a barrier to conflict, and all that foreign political stuff. It is also the fifth of its kind — but the only one to have seen active service. The first three were sabotaged and blown up, and B4 simply disappeared with a skeleton crew of 1400 people or so.

When it comes to the plot, it seemed as if season 1 mainly dealt with setting up what I guess is the primary conflict of the show — the war between Light and Shadow. (I think I need to stop reading Wikipedia articles on shows I haven’t seen yet…) It did this by revealing the past history of the different races and their relationships to each other; by showing all the seeds of conflict within the races and the characters; and by revealing some precious few things about this “Shadow” thing. All of this is done primarily through small revelations made during the unfolding of the episode plots. Of which there are usually two per episode, each related to one or more of the main characters, and often thematically linked in some way. I’m a little unsure of how consistent this was done, as I didn’t start taking any real notice of it until pretty late in the season, but I got the impression it was rather consistent.

As for the quality of these plots, I thought they were relatively good. Most of them were what I in a Buffyverse setting would have called “monster-of-the-week’y”, each episode being quite self-contained and able to stand alone. Personally, though, I prefer somewhat more arc-heavy shows, and in spite of there being a very clear and realistic feeling of consistency and continuity to this first season of B5, it’s not as much of it as I would have prefered. Also, quite often these episodes tend to tie in with the main characters in a relatively indirect way, mostly through characters who only appear in one episode. This is an entirely adequate solution, but I sometimes felt it prevented me from connecting with the main characters themselves. How they reacted to what happened to their friends was of course one way to connect with them, but I suspect that this might have been even better if things had happened more directly to them. But then again, maybe not.

As for the characters themselves… the main-main character is probably Commander Sinclair. He’s like the Angel or Buffy of this show, only, well, kinda boring. I mean, the suspense they’ve built up around him and his fate is probably one of the show’s stronger sides, but he is so proper, and so… Sure, he has his demons, and he’s kinda witty, too. I just don’t like him.

Then his second-in-command is a different story entirely. Lieutenant-Commander Susan Ivanova is Russian, and a pessimist, and she is very aware of both these things, often claiming they’re basically the same thing. She, too, has her demons, but to me these were more profound than Sinclair’s. Where his is “oh-am-I-a-hero-or-am-I-a-traitor?”, hers seems to me to be a more personal one, in that it’s related to her family and her childhood. Of course, Sinclair’s issues are also identity related, but his never really seem to interfere with his duties, whereas Ivanova came close to breaking Earth Force law once, if she didn’t actually do it.

The third major human character, is Security Chief Michael Garibaldi — as I choose to regard both Talia and the docor as more secondary characters, at least for now. So. Garibaldi. What to say? First of all, this is probably my favourite character, next to a couple of the alien ambassadors. He is devoted to his job, but most of all to Sinclair, to B5, and to justice. He’s temperamental, yet down-to-earth, and he’s basically just a good man. Without thinking this through, I believe he has all the qualities I admire. Awesome character. Also, he’s one of Londo’s best friends.

Londo. Ambassador to Babylon 5 from the Centauri Empire, the race that tried to convince humans when they first met us, that they were our ancestors, and that we should join their glorious empire. The problems are that (1) that humans and Centauri are in no way related, and (2) that the Centauri Empire isn’t very “glorious” any longer. Londo seems like a human, though, perhaps more than any other of the alien ambassadors, especially in his appreciation of the carnal pleasures. This, however, also illustrates the state in which his beloved empire finds itself: decadence and the following decay. This is reflected in his personality in an amazing way, in that he has the pride of someone aware of the past glories of his people, while at the same time also displaying that he is well aware that the might of his empire is waning. And I’m just a sucker for characters who displays such impotent braggadocio, especially when there’s some potential for this braggadocio being realised. A great character, in so many ways.

Londo’s most fierce rival is ambassador G’kar of the Narn. The Narn are quite fierce on a general basis, but when it comes to the Centauri they would be genocidal, if they had he chance. This has its reasons in history, as the Narn are a race recently liberated from slavery under the Centauri. The Centauri plundered their homeworld, changing it from a lush paradise to a barren waste. Also, the Centauri weren’t too lenient on their slaves, so there’s a lot of bad blood between the two peoples. The Centauri are pissed off, too, as the Narn are ever expanding on the expense of the Centauri. G’kar, then, hates the Centauri with a vengeance. He is also more stuck-up than Londo (while still being far from the dry sticks that are Sinclair and Delenn), but just as complex a character. One of my four or five favourites.

Third of the four ambassadors is Delenn of the Minbari. The Minbari are an interesting race. They seem to be divided into two casts, one religious and one military, and there is significant friction between the two. Ten years before the events in B5 the Minbari were at war with Earth, but surrendered after a decisive battle in space — a battle around which much of season 1’s main plot arc revolves. So, back to Delenn. This, too, is a complex character, with a lot of diverging loyalties that evolves throughout the season. She has a peculiar relationship with Sinclair, as well as with the other ambassadors. The Minbari, and especially her caste, are a very reserved bunch, and this limits at least my ties to the character, as I tend to prefer different kinds of characters, but she undoubtedly has a lot of potential.

One problem with the show, what concerns the character, is that practically all the bad guys are really bad, with hardly a sympathetic trait between them. If they’re bad, they’re bad. And even though I understand that this is supposed to be told from B5’s point of view, and that to them, these people ARE unsympathetic… well, I still think it’d be nice to at least refrain from making every damn Earth official a self-righteous, arrogant smeghead.

I’ve already mentioned that the character Delenn showed a lot of potential. And that word — potential — might be the word that best describes the whole show. Because this show has plenty of potential and promise, and even though it was a great season in its own right, too, I think its greatest strengths lays in the sheer amounts of suspense it builds for the rest of the show. “Signs and Portents”, indeed! :D

(Finally, allow me to apologise for the whimsical way I’ve written this. I’m half-way watching some kind of British show on the telly as I write it, so my concentration’s not too good. And as some of you might remember, I rarely proof read.)