Alone in the dark and finally in high definition.
What They Say:
2258 CE. Five hostile federations dominate the outermost regions of space. Heroes, thieves and rare and exotic beings find refuge in this time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war on a lone space station–the last and best hope for peace between a hundred worlds, alien and human alike–Babylon 5
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release is pretty solid all around as we get the original English mix in 5.1 using the DTS-HD MA lossless codec. While I always hope for more dubs to be included, even if they end up being Dolby Digital mixes, the original mix is what’s key and they offer it up in great form here. It’s crisp and clear throughout and it captures the effects well while the dialogue has some good placement along the forward soundstage as appropriate. I don’t have high expectations for a thirty-year-old TV series designed for a very different environment than now but the end result is that we get a show that captures the source material in a way that is far cleaner and more enjoyable than I ever had before. The only downside is that the subtitle side isn’t as good as it could be – it seems to lean more to the script than what’s said as there are times when key words are left out – and there are only English subtitles. Surely there are some official subtitles from other languages available over the years and it’s disappointing that this is as narrowly done as it is.
Video:
Originally airing from 1993 to 1998, the five seasons and film material here and spread across twenty-one discs, the series is in its original full frame aspect ratio and encoded using the AVC codec. Having seen the original SD broadcast when it first aired, then seeing the DVD sets, and starting the streaming HD release a few years ago, I’ve seen a lot of versions of it. While I’m sure there are differences and issues that the hardcore fans will find and have with it (a simple Google search proves that), for me this looks like the cleanest and best version of it that I’ve seen. The show is very much a 90s TV syndicated series but project but they handled it well and were creative throughout. Not a lot of it comes across badly here as we’re now able to see more details (and zoom in on props to really look at details that were never supposed to be visible) and you can see flaws there. But in regards to the actual encoding, it’s something that delivers a great look and captures both the time and creates its own feeling that blends things well. The CG material looks great throughout and there are a lot of sequences that stand out in terms of quality where it just hits a sweet spot for this old fan. Part of it is the rose-colored lens of nostalgia that may have me overlook a few things, but the majority of fans will be thrilled with this set and be able to enjoy it in a way they never have before.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release is probably the only disappointment I have in the set. It has a thin slipcase to hold the oversized keepcase inside that holds all twenty-one discs on six hinges. The slipcover is pretty basic with some nice artwork on the front with the logo along the top so we get a good space battle without trying to figure out character placement from a five-season show. The back provides a brief summary of what to expect and then showcases the individual seasons with the packaging design from past DVD releases but with a Blu-ray logo along the top of them. It’s an interesting choice but it’s nice to get more artwork. The rest fleshes out the production information and minimal technical information along the bottom. The massive keepcase itself replicates the slipcover side of things but on the reverse side it has some space background visuals to it and provides a breakdown of the episodes by season in order. There’s a tension to the hinges to hold the discs which is both good and bad because I felt like I was going to snap each disc every time I took one out. But once it was latched in I knew that it wasn’t going to fall out on its own as well.
Menu:
The menus for this release go pretty basic in a standard kind of way that works well for it. It helps to set the tone nicely when it comes to the visual expectations as the black parts of the background look great, the CG artwork hits a sweet spot of appeal, and just having it on a large screen like mine means it stands out in a way that feels modern and new while still retaining the classic elements. The navigation is kept to the bottom which is pretty straightforward as there aren’t a lot options here but the episode selection works smoothly and having at least an option for SDH subtitles is welcome since a lot of fans of it are a good bit older now and a bit hard of hearing.
Revisiting Babylon 5 after so many years is one of those interesting projects. The show saw some streaming in high definition recently, which I caught some of in trying to get my adult children to watch the show with me, but getting it all in one complete set for the main series and the original The Gathering film is one of the best things to hit Blu-ray in a long time. The show is one that missed out on getting a new cultural appreciation experience like Deep Space Nine did through streaming and that’s unfortunate as both explore similar things but from vastly different approaches. The drama of the day, done through magazines and the earliest of internet chat rooms, was certainly a sign and portent of what was to come as fandom moved more and more online. Going back to it now all these years later and separate from all the controversy at the time allows you to appreciate the project on its own, dated material and all.
The series is one that was definitely unusual for its time as not only was it a syndicated show that wasn’t available everywhere, but it went against most of the dictates of not just these kinds of networks but most broadcast TV outside of soap operas. Exceptions exist but the general mindset for most shows was that it had to be instantly accessible to a new viewer without a lot of knowledge of what came before. You wanted to be able to draw someone in on an episodic basis and keep them with some light ongoing narrative material. That made up the bulk of TV for the longest time but it also made things less than engaging for a lot of people. Inconsistencies and the like would crop up easily and there were only so many times you could watch the formula play out for an action/adventure show. There are certainly charms to it – and 90s syndication had a lot of them – but long-form storytelling for TV was still few and far between.
Babylon 5 leaned into the episodic side well enough to make that first season accessible but the creative minds behind it had a bigger view of what to do and how to manage it. There was a story that was being told that was teased in the first season of an ancient evil or darkness in space that was being awakened. Tales of it are myth to many species out there but others know the truth and have been preparing for it for the longest time. And stumbling into all of this is humanity as we continue to expand while also trying to broker peace and cooperation – even though we see that things on Earth in that regard are slowly breaking down as well. There are plenty of parallels to draw to many time periods with what the show wants to talk about here but that’s because it’s happened so many times in history in these big and small moments. The first season lays all the foundational blocks down so that we know the players, the various cultures, the kinds of problems that exist between them, and we get connected to the characters whose lives we follow in this largely single space of a massive space station.
So, when things begin to change as the threats begin making their moves and a variety of elements are impacted, react to, or take advantage of situations that come into play, it’s able to take those foundational pieces and expand on them. But it’s one that moves at a thoroughly engaging pace because it’s not constant. We see elements threaded throughout the first two seasons so that when the energy hits in the third and the more formal reveals come into play, the payoffs are there because the time was spent on it. But even amid all of these bigger moments, we get episodes that focus on individual characters or stories. Creator J. Michael Straczynski cut his teeth on a lot of procedurals over the 1980s and knows how to tell these kinds of morality tales well, especially after the use of such ideas in the 60s with Star Trek. You get the sense that he and the writing team enjoy playing with these kind of near-bottle episodes but also engaging in them more honestly – for the times – and not pulling back from some of the bleaker realities and choices that have to be made. When the show shifts to a full war setting and we see how each of the societies reacts, and the ambassadors and others that the show has followed, you understand exactly why they act as they do. You won’t always agree, but understanding the motivations and the push of history behind them provides an education in how to interact and to work with people because of it.
The show wasn’t without issues along the way and there were certainly plenty of problems. The regular tension over whether it would be renewed made being invested in it a real heartache until you finally learned about the renewal. The series, planned for five seasons from the start, ended up wrapping up most of its storylines in the fourth season because they feared that they wouldn’t get the renewal. They ended up losing a few cast members because of the late renewal and the fifth season feels a bit off because of it, like the last season of Fringe in a way. But this was also the strength of the show. The series lost its lead with Michael O’Hare after the first season, though he was able to do some guest work. Because of how JMS designed the show and had planned ahead, he was able to bring in Bruce Boxletiner to take over in that role and infused the show with a different energy that I think worked better for the themes as the series grew as well. Others came and went, such as Andrea Thompson being in just the first couple of seasons, but the expansion of other groups brought in people like Jason Carter as Marcus Cole, which definitely leaned into the syndicated feeling at times with an air of Robin Hood about him.
But these all proved to be part of the strengths of a single location. Science fiction fans had spent most of their time traveling to strange new worlds with weekly adventures and the fear of a show like this being in one place felt odd yet understandable. What we got was having characters orbits bringing them back to the station naturally over time – and stories that took place elsewhere from time to time – which gave it life. You weren’t forced to rely on new characters every week. You weren’t forced to use every character every week either. And with each season coming in at twenty-two episodes, you had the time to create unexpected friendships, alliances, plots, and threats. Just the jockeying between the various ambassadors was great, but then getting time on their homeworlds and seeing those stories spin out into completely engaging tangents provided for some of the best highlights. Everything with Londo and his path was richly beautiful and engaging in its tragedy. And each of these characters grew and changed because of the regular cast, which changed, and those whose orbits brought them back into play at irregular and unexpected times.
In Summary:
With over a hundred episodes, there are so many storylines and characters that I connected with and enjoyed. Particular sayings of some characters, knowing the tragic paths ahead of so many of them, and understanding some of the real-world tragedies as well. Babylon 5 is the kind of property that really needed a much larger world to play in as the decades went on but was lost to many for a lot of different reasons. With the new animated movie out earlier this year, high definition streaming out there for this series, and this first-time Blu-ray release now on the market, I’m hopeful that what was created here can serve as the springboard for more stories beyond it. I don’t want to go back to B5 to tell more tales in this period but I want to spend a lot more time in this world that was created and what can come from it. This set lets me go back and see the show in a way I couldn’t back in 1994 when I first watched it on a Saturday night and was introduced to something completely new. This is a very special property and this release is hugely welcome to have.
Features:
English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Language, English SDH Subtitles
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: B
Released By: Warner Bros.
Release Date: December 5th, 2023
MSRP: $134.98
Running Time: 78 hrs 50 mn
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
