About Babylon 5: Seasons 1-5 Babylon 5: The Movie Collection
Babylon 5: Seasons 1-5 Babylon 5: The Movie Collection
Babylon 5 is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. After the successful airing of a test pilot movie on February 22, 1993, Babylon 5: The Gathering, Warner Bros. commissioned the series for production in May 1993 as part of its Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). The show premiered in the US on January 26, 1994, and ran for five seasons.
Unusual for the time, Babylon 5 was conceived as a "novel for television", with a defined beginning, middle, and end; in essence, each episode would be a single "chapter" of this "novel". A coherent five-year story arc unfolds over five 22-episode seasons. Tie-in novels, comic books, and short stories were also developed to play a significant canonical part in the overall story.
The series follows the human military staff and alien diplomats stationed on a space station, Babylon 5, built in the aftermath of several major inter-species wars as a neutral focal point for galactic diplomacy and trade. Babylon 5 was an early example of a television series featuring story arcs which spanned episodes or whole seasons. Whereas contemporary television shows tended to confine conflicts to individual episodes, maintaining the overall status quo, each season of Babylon 5 contains plot elements which permanently change the series universe.Babylon 5 used multiple episode arcs to address the repercussions of some plot events or character decisions, and episode plots would at times reference or be influenced by events from prior episodes or seasons.
Many races of sentient creatures are seen frequenting the station, with most episodes drawing from a core of around a dozen species. Major plotlines included Babylon 5's embroilment in a millennia-long cyclical conflict between ancient, powerful races, inter-race wars and their aftermaths, and intrigue or upheaval within particular races, including the human characters who fight to resist Earth's descent into totalitarianism. Many episodes focus on the effect of wider events on individual characters, with episodes containing themes such as personal change, loss, subjugation, corruption, defiance, and redemption.
Season 1: Signs and Portents (1994)
Season 2: The Coming of Shadows (1994–1995)
Season 3: Point of No Return (1995–1996)
Season 4: No Surrender, No Retreat (1996–1997)
Season 5: The Wheel of Fire (1998)
