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Babylon 5: The Gathering

Written by J.Michael Straczynski

- TV review (1993)

(A quick proviso to this review... This was originally written immediately after the showing of the pilot episode, which I think even the most avid Babylon 5 fans would agree was a very weak start to the series. In fact, when it went to series, with some judicious recasting and the rapid establishment of what was to become a five-year story arc, Babylon 5 went from strength to strength, rapidly becoming one of the best SF series ever made for television. So the (mostly) negative review below should be taken to apply only the pilot episode, and not as indicative of my feelings about the series itself!)

With Paramount's "Deep Space Nine" now firmly established in the schedules, and more DS9 videos being released by CIC, Warner Brothers' own space station, Babylon 5, seen by some as a direct response to Paramount's seeming monopoly of space adventure, begins its maiden voyage in this movie-length first episode.

The episode begins with a portentous voiceover telling us the history of the Babylon stations, of which Babylon 5 is the last remaining one. Its new commander, Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare), a man haunted by a past space battle (sound familiar?) has just taken charge. We are also introduced to his second-in-command, Laurel Takashima (Tamlyn Tomita), his security officer, Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) and the station doctor, Benjamin Kyle (Johnny Sekka). We are then plunged straight into a plot involving the signing of a peace treaty between five star empires. The ambassadors of these empires are to meet aboard the station, but of course things go awry and there are various dastardly plots afoot involving the beautiful telepath Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman), the alien ambassadors G'Kar and Delenn (Andreas Katsulas and Mira Fulan), a slimy villain, Del Varner (John Fleck), poisonings, shapechangers, political shenanigans and a climactic battle with exploding ironing boards (no, I'm not joking!).

Babylon 5 has a very different look to DS9, although aspects of it are derivative of the Star Trek spin-off as well as just about any other science fiction source you could think of. In great part this is to do with the much-heralded computer-generated effects. Those of you who may have seen "The Last Starfighter" will know what to expect, although it must be said that Babylon 5's effects are considerably more complex than that film's. They are very successful for the most part, and the relative cheapness of programming a computer rather than building and motion-control shooting starship models allows there to be a very much larger number of complex effects shots. There is also a far greater "alien" feel to the ships used, avoiding the rather similar look that seems endemic to the Star Trek universe ships. That said, however, with the best will in the world, a computer generated ship still looks like a computer generated ship, particularly when the virtual camera zooms in to show closeup detail.

Babylon 5's claim to originality, however, begins and ends with the effects. Sadly it is a tired old re-hashing of every SF cliche you can think of: all the men are either square-jawed macho Bruce Willis types or obvious pock-faced sneering villains; the women all look as if they've stepped out of "V". Some of the dialogue has to be heard to be believed - I'll wait...but not forever! The acting is atrocious throughout. I cannot believe that with all the out-of-work actors there must be in America, Warner Brothers could not do better than this lot. I spent the first hour of the episode convinced that the leading man's voice was being dubbed; then I realised it was just that his performance was so terrible that it seemed like his voice was being dubbed. Actually, to be fair, there are a few good performances in it - Mira Fulan is suitably and weirdly androgynous as the Minbari ambassador Delenn, and as the Narn ambassador G'Kar an unrecognisable Andreas Katsulas acts the rest of the cast off the screen. Ironically, Andreas Katsulas is better known to us as the Romulan Commander Tomalak in ST:TNG's episodes "The Enemy", "The Defector" and "Future Imperfect".

Halfway through I was so bored that I started playing the "Spot-the..." game. You know - spot the "Aliens" bit, spot the "Star Wars" bit... there's even a rip-off of the trial scene from "Star Trek VI". I was irresistibly reminded of one of those Roger Corman films that he used to put together out of unused bits of other films. This is not helped by some very sloppy scripting - there are far too many moments when you think "Hang on a minute, that doesn't make sense!" And I don't know about anyone else, but I am getting very tired of the villain(s) having the hero bang to rights and then, instead of simply dealing with him there and then announcing that there will be twelve hours before some BAD THING happens, thus allowing the hero to escape from his predicament. That's just bad plotting, and there's no excuse for it. I don't know whether it was Warner Brothers intention to aim for the juvenile market with "Babylon 5" but it certainly seems that way. The cliched characters are barely delineated and there is no sense of any underlying reality; none of the characters seem to have any background, they exist only to serve the purposes of the plot. You don't care about any of them, so you're not very interested in what happens to them.

To sum up, then, on the plus side there are the mostly excellent special effects and some very nice alien makeups - making a long-needed change from Star Trek's Michael Westmore's "humans with lumpy foreheads". On the minus side, the plot is corny, the pacing slow and dull, and most of the acting is shocking. I feel that this is definitely going to appeal to those who thought "Battlestar Galactica" was brilliant stuff. I don't think "Deep Space Nine", for all its faults, has much to worry about. That said, this pilot was successful enough (or expensive enough) for Warner Brothers to commission a series, which no doubt will be heading our way soon. Perhaps it will improve as it goes along. As a bonus for Star Trek fans, apparently Walter Koenig (Chekov) is due to feature quite heavily in later episodes - though this may have changed as a result of his recent health problems.

"Babylon 5 - the Gathering" should be available at your local video store by the time you read this. Check it out for yourselves.