The Evil One here, and sakes alive, if I’m not HYPED UP!! about the upcoming DVD set of BABYLON 5 : THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON!The reasons are many…Read on to see why an avowed Evil Genius like myself, a ‘Cineaste Extraordinaire’ if you will, is so taken with this little bit of heaven… Welcome back to HYPED UP!, where we here at The EYE get to rant and/or rave about upcoming discs and news from the screening rooms of North America…This time out, I am friggin’ HYPED! About the new BABYLON 5: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON set which bows on November 5… So read on to hear the mad ravings of a foamy-mouthed fanboy on the hype-o-hol…Hyped Up! Volume 2 is dedicated to the soon to debut BABYLON 5: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON. Which has been sorely missing from my personal SciFi collection for years.I remember back in 1993, when every Saturday afternoon, as I was going out the door to work at the theatre, this weird new sci-fi soap opera show would come on. BABYLON 5. I never really gave it much thought, and I had never really sat down and watched an episode. Flash forward to a few years ago, while I was managing and doing projection at a small-town theatre, having most of my afternoons free, working late and getting home at 2 in the morning. I would get up around 11 and often go up to have coffee with the guy who lived upstairs and chat comics and watch NEWSRADIO. One day I woke up late and went up to find him watching BABYLON 5. I was usually in my office hard at work on my endless and unsalvageable novel by this time in the day. I made myself an espresso, sat down with a bowl of Count Chocula and said “What the F*$# is this?”. Forty-five minutes later, I was hooked.I had soon adapted my schedule so that I was right in front of the tube when it came on at 1 in the afternoon. If I missed the episode in the afternoon, I would race home from the theatre to catch the replay at 2 A.M. I watched that show Monday to Friday for 7 or 8 months, until I had seen every last episode. What a ride! If only I had known what I was missing back in 93’! Praise be to the cable networks that replay this stuff that mooks like me missed the first time around.The show was one of the first dramatic action series, let alone sci-fi series, that I had seen that followed a long term story arc. The characters and the detailed plotlines turned what could have degraded into a stereotypical Trek clone into a classic Space epic, on par with DUNE and yes, even STAR WARS. It was a philosophical mans sci-fi, more about politics and bigotry and the basic nature of good vs. evil than it was about gizmos and effects. Babylon 5 went right in all of the places that Trek spin-offs like VOYAGER and DEEP SPACE 9 went wrong. The stories remained centered on a core group of characters and carried you through their parts in waging a war of survival against ultimately evil and totally non-human forces. The evil they faced was insidious and ancient and unfathomable, and that made it all the more terrifying. The way that the forces of evil (known as The Shadows) could infiltrate and manipulate any and all aspects of these numerous civilizations was fascinating. Loyalties were always in question, identity was never for certain, and events could never be taken at face value. What happened one week could impact something months away without betraying a single plotline in-between.There was amazing effect work being done on the show. For 1993 standards, the pioneering CGI work in the space sequences were all but impossible to imagine on a TV show. The visuals used for planets and spaceship dogfights were state of the art at the time. Today after the last ten years of lightspeed advancement in CG technology, they may look a little cheesy, but the stories are so engrossing and the characters so engaging, that suspension of disbelief is almost a reflex action. You forget about the effects and the make-up and the sets, and totally accept this universe is real, down to the last Menbari head-bone.The ensemble cast is phenomenal, and how they aren’t all superstars now is beyond me. The biggest names in the cast – Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian and Stephen Furst (Yes, Flounder from ANIMAL HOUSE) – all have long histories of bitparts and TV roles in such genre fare as TRON, THE HIDDEN and THE DAY AFTER. The rest of the cast has credits in everything from the big screen version of THE FUGITIVE to cameos on MOONLIGHTING. My favorites are Jerry Doyle, who plays Security Chief Garibaldi, a rough and gruff bald ass-kicker who brings to mind a slightly older Jason Statham. Bill Mumy, the original Will Robinson on TV’s LOST IN SPACE plays a tormented aide to Yugoslavian star Mira Furlan’s always regal Ambassador Dellen. Also look for Jeff Conway (Yes, that is Kenickie on the security team), Walter Keonig as Alfred Bester, Psi Cop (A whole other show waiting to be made), and the team of Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik at the endlessly antagonistic pair known as Ambassadors G’Kar and Mollari, respectively.Katsulas is best known as the one-armed man pursued by Harrison Ford in THE FUGITIVE, and as Romulan bad boy Commander Tomalak on Star Trek TNG. Jurasik played Sid the Snitch on HILL STREET BLUES, and costarred with Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges in TRON. These two oppositional forces are the very heart of BABYLON 5. Their constant bickering and love/hate relationship livens up every episode, punctuating most episodes with wildly varying moments of buddy comedy and violent rage. The thing to note is that the mood of the G’Kar and Mollari moments are always supplemental to the story and mood, and never take away from the rest of the episode. It is a testament to the storytelling prowess of the shows creator and head scribe J. Michael Straczynski.Straczynski, who started out as the host of HOUR 25, a popular L.A. radio show about Sci-Fi, went on to write for HE MAN: MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, SHE-RA: PRINCESS OF POWER and CAPTAIN POWER as well as pulling writing duties on the mid-80’s version of THE TWILIGHT ZONE, MURDER SHE WROTE, and JAKE AND THE FATMAN. After his monumental success with BABYLON 5, he went on to become one of the biggest names in the Comic book industry with his new take on characters like THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN. With B5, Straczynski has fleshed out an immense mythology and an entertaining collection of characters to explore it with. Only THE X FILES comes to mind when thinking of recent shows with such care for genre writing. His newest endeavor, the post-apocalyptic Showtime series JEREMIAH was just picked up for a second season.I for one am absolutely stoked to have this series coming into my collection. As a hardcore SciFi fan, in terms of film and literature, I consider Babylon 5 to be an integral entry in the genre. Having long worn out my crap VHS tapes from TV airings, these DVD’s will no doubt be beautiful distraction for years to comeWe will have a copy of the DVD Set to give away next week, so stay tuned for contest details…Check out the forums for some pics and cool video excerpts from the set…
