Babylon 5 was a groundbreaking TV series, and one that in its own way has helped reshape the face of SF TV

The TV Movies

Towards the end of the fourth, and possibly final, season plans were made to produce a number of stand alone TV movies. The first of these was designed to detail both the Earth-Minbari war and the back story of the main cast, while the second was a largely self contained story set during the period between the end of the Shadow war and the liberation of Earth. Because these were shot during the fourth season the character of Ivanova is featured. The third movie was again self contained and set after the fifth and final season. Consequently it featured Captain Lochley, Zack Allan and Lt Corwin with only a visiting Garibaldi from the original cast. The final two movies were designed as pilots for potential new series. However only A Call to Arms was successful (unlike the series it spawned) with the Legend of the Rangers destined to be a one shot. There was a proposed cinema movie, The Memory of Shadows, but despite much excitement within the B5 community the deal collapsed. This movie was to have featured the character of Galen, the resident technomage from Crusade, who was investigating the distribution and use of Shadow technology. This was expected to have been a part of the ongoing development of the Crusade series, but it looks like again the story has been stalled.

For details of The Gathering (original series pilot) please refer to the main series section.

Index:

Legend of the Rangers (To Live and Die in Starlight)

In the beginning

This is an epic of a story, it begins on Centauri Prime, a brother and sister have run from their nurse and entered the throne room. Londo, who is now older, indulges himself with the children and gives the boy the imperial badge telling him that he is now emperor and can make a command. The children want a true story, so Londo tells them one:

Earth is basking in the glory of its victory over the Dilgar, and has decided it wants to find out more about the Minbari, who have until now remained secluded. Asking the Centauri representative (Londo) about the Minbari, results in the good advice of letting sleeping dogs lie. Undeterred the mission to investigate the Minbari is offered to up and coming officer, John Sheridan, but he prefers to remain with his ship as he does not think it right to leave his post so soon.

Meanwhile on Minbar, Lennon, the leader of the now diminished and old Rangers is taken before the Grey Council in their battle cruiser. He states his case that the Rangers need new blood, but is rebuffed by the representatives of the Military Caste. Dukhat, the leader of the council agrees to take the ship to investigate activities on the Rim, but that they would do so via a circuitous route. Newly elected to the council, Delenn, questions Dukhat, who is also her mentor, but he is reluctant to answer her. Pointing out that recent cargoes indicate a visit by beings requiring a different atmosphere, Delenn is not easily put off the scent.

The Earthforce mission arrives near Minbari space and is surprised to see a Minbari ship. Trying to probe the ship all that can be ascertained is that the Minbari is advancing on them with its gun ports open. Then a Minbari sensor sweep overwhelms the Earth vessels systems and the captain begins to panic.

On the Minbari ship, Dukhat is informed that there is an Earth ship in range, and as per Minbari custom they are approaching with gun ports open – a sign of strength and equality. Dukhat realises that this may be seen as a threat but before he can take action the Earth ship opens fire. The initial attack wrecks much havoc and kills a number of councillors, including Dukhat. Delenn is asked what to do, and overcome by grief gives the order to kill all humans. She later goes into Dukhat’s quarters and finds it occupied by a Vorlon. The Vorlon tells her that they will encounter a new race and must join them as allies; this race is the humans.

Delenn tries to stop the attack, but the war has now started and she can not stop it.

As the Minbari forces decimate the human colonies, Earthforce tries to obtain aid from other races, but there is little anyone will do for fear of antagonising the Minbari. Dr Franklin has been imprisoned as he refused to turn his notes on Minbari physiology over to the military.

Out in deep space, an Earthforce ship is attacked by the Minbari cruiser Dark Star. Assuming command of the crippled Earth ship, the ranking officer – Sheridan- decides to lay a trap. Mining the nearby asteroids with nuclear war heads, Sheridan lures the Dark Star within range and destroys it. News of this victory is shown to new Earthforce recruits, including a young Ivanova, whose elder brother has been killed in combat.

Back on Earth, Sheridan is teamed with a reluctant Franklin and G’Kar to go on a mission to meet up with a contact from the Minbari who is seeking peace. Arriving at the rendezvous, the Minbari is Lennon but before any progress can be made a Centauri ship attacks and Lennon is fatally injured. As he dies he whispers something to Sheridan.

On board the Minbari cruiser, Delenn encounters Franklin and Sheridan who are being taken for interrogation. Sheridan hearing Delenn’s name shouts out something in Minbari. He doesn’t understand the language, but what he has said was a message to Delenn. She arranges for them to be released and heads to the council.

The Minbari are now bearing down on Earth and as a last ditch attempt to by time for evacuation, Earthforce sends every ship it has into space; this is the Battle of the Line.

The Grey Council are convinced by Delenn that they should interrogate another human, and picking a starfury that is on a collision course take it onboard. The pilot is Jeffrey Sinclair and while he is being interrogated the Minbari instruments detect that not only does he possess the soul of a Minbari, that soul is the soul of Valen reborn. The Religious Caste has no option and order the Warrior Caste to surrender. The war is over.

Back in the present, the childrens’ nurse takes them from the throne room and Londo, who has been drinking steadily, calls up a display showing Sheridan and Delenn as his captives (this is Sheridan’s time slip come true) and orders them released.

Thirdspace

It’s a time between the Shadow war and the liberation of Earth. A strange, and extremely large, artefact is found drifting in hyperspace and is brought through the jumpgate to B5 for examination. Despite B5 being quarantined by Earthdome at this point, an IPX team arrive and persuade Sheridan to let them investigate.

Meanwhile Lyta is starting to act very strangely.

The artefact drains energy from anything that comes too close to its surface. While the survey team are assembling a lighting rig around the artefact, Lyta sleepwalks into Maintenance and programs the maint-bots to destroy the artefact. The maint-bots are shot down by station starfuries and Lyta is taken to Med-lab, where she recovers with no memory of her actions.

The artefact begins to exert its influence over people on B5, some have dreams of a strange city; for some they are pleasant and for others nightmares. Fights are breaking out across the station and then once IPX succeed in activating the artefact it begins to drain power from the station itself.

Sheridan and Delenn go to Lyta’s quarters where they find her possessed by an ‘echo’ of the Vorlons. She explains that the Vorlons travelled throughout the galaxy and were perceived as gods by the younger races. In an attempt to prove their godhood they built a portal into a higher dimension. Lyta explains that the Vorlons opened the portal but found a race older than them, all telepathic and determined to kill all life other than them. The aliens had modified the gate to amplify their telepathy and they took control of some of the Vorlons themselves. The Vorlons tried to destroy the gate but those under alien control hid it in hyperspace. Lyta transfers instructions on how to destroy the gate telepathically to Sheridan and Delenn.

The White Star fleet, Minbari cruisers, starfuries and thunderbolts (enhanced starfuries) engage alien ships emerging from the gate. Meanwhile Sheridan, in a thrusters equipped space suit, carries a nuclear device into the gate’s structure. When he reaches the tower at the centre of the gate, he arms the device and turns round into the face of a rather large, nasty looking alien; all legs, tentacles and teeth.

Sheridan escapes from the gate, barely, and the bomb detonates destroying the gate and the emerging ships; Sheridan is blown clear. On the station the fights subside and the process of clearing things up begins.

The final word is from Lyta; “One mistake, one mistake of so many….”

The River of Souls

Archaeology is a dangerous business (just ask Bernice Summerfield), but Bryson (Ian McShane) is after the greatest prize of all-immortality. On a desolate planet Bryson’s team break into an underground chamber filled with glowing spheres. Unbeknownst to them an alarm has been sounded. Looking around the chamber Bryson is getting very excited, something his team finds hard to share. Hearing the sound of arriving space craft Bryson is deserted by his team. Reluctant to leave empty handed he picks up a sphere that is considerably larger than the rest.

On Babylon 5 Lochley is having trouble with an enterprising businessman who has set up a holo-brothel. She sends Zack down to investigate, but his lease does not specifically preclude such entertainments and when Zack leaves he calls his attorney. The following morning Lochley finds her breakfast interrupted by the serving of documents alleging harassment, suppression of free speech and various other charges.

Garibaldi has come to the station to investigate the funding of one of Edgars Industries projects; Bryson. Not impressed with Bryson’s verbal reports Garibaldi gives him till the following morning to collate his data. Back in his room, Bryson is experimenting with the sphere and achieves a projection of a wraith like image, but it soon collapses.

Bryson passes out as he is writing up his journal, as he does he knocks the sphere and it rolls into some of his equipment causing a discharge along conduits on the wall. Zack is walking through a corridor and comes across a woman crying. He tries to talk to her, but she passes through him. The following morning, Garibaldi finds that Bryson has burnt his notes and seems to be slightly unhinged. Garibaldi reports to Lochley that he is leaving just as a ship comes through the jumpgate; it’s a soul hunter ship.

Meeting the soul hunter (Martin Sheen) they learn that he is after Bryson; the sphere contains the souls of an entire species, one of only three times his race has done this. Security reports that Bryson is missing. He is in Down Below, wiring the sphere to the station systems; a pulse of energy leaps out of the sphere and goes hunting.

In her quarters Lochley is talking to the soul hunter when the energy pulse attacks. Lochley pushes the soul hunter out of the way and is struck full force by the pulse. Rushed to Med Lab, Lochley dies and finds herself pulled to into the sphere where she meets one of the souls using the form of Dr Franklin. He tells her that the soul hunters made a mistake, his race was not dying, it was evolving. Some of the souls trapped there have gone mad and would rather die than be free, especially if they can get revenge on the soul hunters in the process.

As a fleet of soul hunter ships surrounds the station, the holo-brothel starts to manifest members of the sphere’s inmates. Lochley comes round and is greeted by the soul hunter who tells her that no-one has ever saved the life of one of his brotherhood. He tells her the other soul hunters are growing impatient and want the sphere back. Lochley tells him of the soul hunters’ error, but he doubts his people will believe it.

With the soul hunters gathered outside, the mad spirits have set the stations reactor to meltdown, knowing that all the soul hunters will be destroyed to. Lochley, Garibaldi and Zack are called to the holo-brothel where the souls are using the equipment to give themselves forms. As Lochley looks on in shock, one of the ‘girls’ in the brothel is patterned on her.

They follow the holo-forms to a hold, where Lochley realises it is a diversion. Tracing Bryson, they find him holding the sphere and surrounded by a whirl of souls. Unable to penetrate the soul energy, the soul hunter offers himself in exchange. He promises that if they take him into the sphere, his people will find a way to release them so they can continue their evolution. The souls accept this and drain his soul into the sphere.

Lochley hands the sphere over to a soul hunter, but tells him that if he breaks the promise she will make sure the hunters become the hunted. Meanwhile inside the sphere, the soul hunter is joined by soul taking the form of Lochley.

A Call to Arms

This was the pilot for Crusade, and introduced both the threat and some of the characters.

It is five years after the founding of the Alliance, Sheridan visits Garibaldi, who is now running Edgars Industries (and married to Lise). Garibaldi has been overseeing the construction of two prototype heavy cruisers for the Alliance. The ships contain both minbari and vorlon technologies, reverse engineered to be compatible with existing human technology. The process has not been running smoothly and when they try to take the Excalibur out of dry dock, the engines fail miserably. Sheridan is not impressed, and neither is Garibaldi, both because he ordered them tested before the president’s arrival (they weren’t) and because it made him look like an idiot.

Sheridan receives a message from Delenn, but when he receives the transmission it is a coded sequence designed to program information directly into his mind. The transmission takes half an hour but to Sheridan it takes only seconds. Garibaldi suggests he get some rest while they sort out the problem with the drive system.

While Sheridan sleeps he has a strange dream. He is on a dead planet with a mysterious figure. The man is Galen, a technomage, and it was him who sent the transmission to Sheridan to enable this ‘dream’ to take place. They are really sharing a transmission from a probe that Galen has on this planet. It is has been subjected to the destruction of a Shadow planet killer, but it was done only recently. Galen says that they had better withdraw as the engineers of this destruction are returning to check. Before he severs the connection he shows Sheridan the name of a planet and four stone faces, one of which is Sheridan’s.

Sheridan wakes up to find the Excalibur underway; embarrassingly it is being towed to the testing ground. Once there Sheridan is disappointed to see that the weapons of the prototypes are no more powerful than the existing battle fleet. Garibaldi explains that there is a second system, but there is a problem. Because the weapons they have developed are from technologies with much greater power resources the main guns while packing a tremendous punch, drain the ship of virtually all power. Once fired the ship is crippled for 60 seconds, so they can only be used as a last resort. When they go to test fire, Sheridan sees an image of the Earth in the targeting screen. After the test Sheridan tells Garibaldi that they are heading to Babylon 5; there is something going on but he can’t say what in case there isn’t!

On B5 Dureena Nafeel is stopped at immigration as she is carrying weapons. She dutifully hands them over; Zack is surprised that so many could be hidden on one person. She is from a race unknown to anyone and asks where people go if they are ‘lost’. Zack directs her to Down Below. Dureena is looking for hidden markers and follows them to a hatch, as she climbs through she is knocked unconscious. Dureena is on the same planet that Sheridan was on, she is seriously spooked. Sheridan appears and tells her it is not her home. She dives at him and passes through his body. Sheridan becomes Galen, who tells her that he has a message for her. Dureena recovers; she is in chains before the Thieves’ Guild. She is questioned and shrugging of the chains shows them a tattoo that marks her as a member.

Arriving at B5, Sheridan shows Lochley and Garibaldi some sketches of people he is ‘waiting’ for; one is Dureena. An Earthforce ship arrives and a message comes in for Sheridan, it is Captain Anderson, he says that Sheridan is looking for him; it is another of Sheridan’s sketches. Dureena is captured and brought to Sheridan, who she attacks; she holds him responsible for the destruction of her home by the Shadows as he did not come to their aid. Sheridan explains that the coalition did not receive the mayday until too late, but even if they had heard it sooner and good get there, they had nothing that could take out a Shadow planet killer.

Garibaldi and Lochley are talking, it is the next morning. They do not know whether Sheridan is going mad or not, but then discover that he has left on the Earthforce ship during the night. Garibaldi races back to his White Star and sets course for the dry dock. He is too late; Sheridan has already arrived and ‘stolen’ the Excalibur and the Victory.

They head to the planet in Galen’s message and find that it had been the victim of the planet killer. The fourth person they were to meet is a Drazi, but he is already dead. Recovering a data crystal from him they find that he arrived too late and followed the ships who attacked the planet and then returned hoping they did not see him. Four ships appear but they do not recognise the prototypes. Sheridan tries to pull a bluff in the hope of gaining information but he is rumbled, thanks to a traitor from dry dock.

The prototypes engage the Drakh ships (yes its them again), and the Excalibur follows them into a ‘black cloud’ only to see a massive fleet including the planet killer. Escaping from the null cloud Sheridan and the Victory head back to Earth, over taking the slower attack fleet. They are met by a mass fleet of ships alerted by Captain Lochley.

A violent battle ensues when the Drakh arrive. Captain Anderson destroys the planet killer by ramming the Victory directly into the control node. With the planet killer is destroyed but at great cost, unfortunately the Drakh have a second plan; a fleet of Drakh ships has slipped past the fleet and begins seeding Earth’s atmosphere with a black powder. Analysis shows the Drakh have infected the Earth with a plague. The plague is another Shadow weapon, but because the Drakh have not had time to tailor it to human DNA it will take approximately five years to adapt and kill all life on the planet.

The Earth is now in quarantine and the Excalibur will be equipped as a research ship; it will follow up leads found by the Rangers across the galaxy. It is hoped that somewhere in the past the Shadows will have used the plague, and their victims will have found away to counter it.

It is from here that Crusade begins.

To Live and die in Starlight

This was to be a pilot for a new series, The Legend of the Rangers, but no series was commissioned. It has yet to be shown in the UK (at least on terrestrial TV) and is not yet available on DVD (I hope it will be). Therefore this is only a brief synopses and is based fully on online research.

Four years after the foundation of the Alliance, strange craft are attacking Alliance ships (again), and G’Kar is asked to investigate. The Rangers are meanwhile disciplining one of their number, David Martell, who chose to save his crew rather than continue a pursuit that would have resulted in the loss of the ship. It seems that the Ranger’s motto ‘We live for the One, we die for the One’ is being interpreted in a rather fatalistic way.

G’Kar intervenes, reminding them that it is just as honourable to ‘live for the One.’ David is spared and his crew are assigned to an old, and cursed, ship – the Liandra. The Liandra was thought lost with all its crew, but has since been found and is being repaired. They are assigned to escort the latest, human designed (and rather ugly), ship – the Valen, on a mission to show ‘something’ to a group of Alliance diplomats; the final destination is known only to the captain of the Valen, a rival of David’s.

Upon leaving hyperspace they are attacked by the strange ships and the Valen is sacrificed (more ‘we die for the One’), but not until the diplomats are taken aboard the Liandra. Unable to jump to hyperspace the Liandra makes its way to the nearest jumpgate, knowing that the attacking ships will not give up.

On board the Liandra, Sindell, David’s second in command and ESP sensitive minbari, can sense the spirits of the previous crew; they were betrayed and died without seeing the face of their traitor. Injured Sindell receives a visitation from the spirits warning him of a traitor on the ship.

There is indeed a traitor, one of the ambassadors whose race has only recently joined the Alliance, but in fact are working for an old and powerfully race known as the Hand (of God, of Doom, of Omega, of whatever..) who have equipped his people with these strange and powerful ships. Their mission was to destroy the Alliance from within as the Hand are returning and know the Alliance would stand in there way.

Thanks to a rather neat bit of subterfuge, David is able to destroy both pursuing ships and get the Liandra and the diplomats to safety.

Presumably the series if it had happened would have dealt with David and his crew in a battle against this powerful but previously unheard of foe.