Babylon 5 - The Complete First Season | 
 enlarge | Actors: Michael O'hare, Claudia Christian
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $59.98
Buy New: $22.89
You Save: $37.09 (62%)
New (51) Used (29) from $19.93
Rating:  232 reviews
Sales Rank: 3726
Format: Anamorphic, Box Set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Number Of Discs: 6
Running Time: 956 Minutes
Operating System: Windows
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.5 x 1.6
MPN: D22855D
ISBN: 0790770113
UPC: 085392285525
EAN: 9780790770116
ASIN: B00006HAZ4
Theatrical Release Date: January 26, 1994
Release Date: November 5, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | The award-winning series about the space station that's the tumultuous center of the 23rd Century's bid for peace among humans and aliens hyperdrives onto DVD in a Deluxe 6-Disc Set. |
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Product Description
The award-winning series about the space station that's the tumultuous center of the 23rd Century's bid for peace among humans and aliens hyperdrives onto DVD in a Deluxe 6-Disc Set. Featuring 22 episodes digitally remastered for upgraded picture and sound as well as enticing Exclusive Extras Babylon 5: The Complete First Season - Signs and Portents is an adventure-packed state-of-the-universe collectible that will mesmerize fans and space creatures everywhere.Running Time: 990 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 085392285525 Manufacturer No: 22855
Amazon.com
The epic sci-fi series Babylon 5 was a unique experiment in the history of television. It was effectively a novel for television in five seasons, consisting of 110 episodes with a clear beginning, middle, and end. The first season introduces the main characters, headed this year by Commander Jeffery Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), and familiarizes the audience with the unique environment of a five-mile-long space station in the year 2257. The first episode, "Midnight on the Firing Line," plays at a breathless pace, introducing Commander Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and establishing the conflict between the Narn and Centauri races as represented by their ambassadors, G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik). Then follow several mediocre episodes that initially give the impression that B5 is a Star Trek clone afflicted with "silly alien of the week" syndrome. With "And the Sky Full of Stars," B5 really begins to hit its stride, Sinclair being forced to relive his mysterious experiences during the Earth-Minbari war. Filler shows such as "TKO" are notable only for being controversially violent, while the disappointing "Grail" points to writer-creator J. Michael Straczynski's fascination with Arthurian mythology. "Signs and Portents" introduces the sinister Mr. Morden (Ed Wasser) and offers the chilling first appearance of the Shadows, an ancient alien threat. B5 hits warp speed with a run of exceptional episodes building to the season finale. The two-part "Voice in the Wilderness" has Mars breaking into open revolt against Earth and the discovery of a "Great Machine" on the dead world Epsilon 3. Referencing 1950s sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, the story leads to the superb time-travel-based "Babylon Squared." Season finale "Chrysalis" proves more than just the usual television cliffhanger, placing Minbari ambassador Delenn in conflict with her ruling Grey Council and forcing on her a decision that laid the groundwork for Babylon 5's eventually becoming a great love story. --Gary S. Dalkin
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| Customer Reviews: Read 227 more reviews...
 Great series, not so great quality January 2, 2009
Sean E. M. Dence (Quilcene, WA United States)
I'm not going to review the season itself as most of the other people here have done that. With that being said, while the first season of the series is weaker then the later seasons it's still a great introduction to the overall saga and has a couple of really great standout episodes. The episode where Garibaldi's framed and slips back into the bottle and the season finale are really great essential eps to check out that really have great scenes with essential character development. And while this may be one of the weakest seasons of the series, it's nowhere near as lame as season five and you need to own this one if you want the full saga anyway.
So no, I won't get into the quality of the episodes here. This is, as I said, a more technical review of the set. The set is a must if you're an old-time diehard fan like myself but I feel like the picture quality could and should have really been cleaned up more. If you're watching this on a more standard TV and DVD player it looks okay but if you're watching this on an LCD TV or a Blu-Ray player the weak qualities of the picture are, ironically enough, heightened and everything looks grainier and uglier since High-Def TVs and DVD players tend to accentuate poor quality video transfers just as much as they accentuate the great transfers.
And if the grainy picture quality wasn't bad enough, I feel like us B5 fans were really short-changed in terms of the extra materials. Would it have killed Warner to include "In The Beginning" and the two-hour pilot in the set? I don't think that's unreasonable to ask for considering the B5 seasons usually go for more money than a season of your typical show on DVD does (most shows go for $40 or less whereas the B5 sets always go for $60 or more in most places).
The set just feels really empty without the prequel and pilot and it makes it harder for noobies to get into the show without the movies to introduce them to the B5 universe. The TNT special that aired after "In the Beginning" in '98 would have also been a really great extra for the fans of the show and its absence is sorely missed as well. For some reason I really thought it would be on one of the DVD sets but it isn't.
So if you love B5 as much as I do and you're a completist than I think this season's a must and it's worth getting but it's still a bit of a disappointment overall considering what we could have gotten if the master copies weren't somehow screwed up in the tape-to-DVD conversion. I say someone should really start a petition to get this series on Blu-Ray with better picture quality as well as a season one set that includes the movie and the pilot.
The last, best hope gets going December 16, 2008
Red Wedge
The first season of B5 serves as a good introduction to the series - however it is not absolutely essential to following the overall story arc. B5 only really began to kick off in season 2, when Brice Boxleitner replaced Micheal O'Hare in the leading role.
For completists, however, the first season is impressive because it contains script elements that lay the foundations for events throughout all five seasons - for example, an event in the very first episode is eventually resolved in the final episodes of season five. It is this remarkable 'arc' which makes B5 superior novelistic sci-fi.
Unfortuantely, some of the first season's episodes are less than exemplary - mostly those written by 'legendary' sci-fi writers (some of whom worked on the original Star Trek series). With B5, the quality of the episodes is largely dependent upon whether or not series creator Joel Straczynsky wrote them. Hence in the first season, only half are really any good. By the third season Straczynsky was writing all the scripts, and it's no coincidence that series 3 is generally regarded as the best.
Yes, the first season's DVDs are a little poorer in quality than the rest, but I only noticed real problems when viewing on a laptop LCD. On the TV they were less noticable.
But even with these caveats, B5 is still some of the best sci-fi from the 90s
 Not bad! December 13, 2008
Charles Cashatt (Burlington, VT USA)
I never totally watched this series in full until it came out on DVD. Special effects are awesome and the story, while a bit corny, is sound and pertinent to todays society.
 On its way to greatness October 31, 2008
Captain Awesome
I was still pretty young when Babylon 5 first debuted, so my initial reaction to it was mostly based on the cool-looking aliens and (for that time) great special effects. Having rewatched the entire series since then, with a better ability to discern what actually does make it great, I realize that I wasn't far off in considering this the greatest sci-fi series I've ever watched.
The first season starts off somewhat slowly, though, and has occasional missteps as JMS finds his way in balancing the need to push the overarching narrative forward while still finding time for the one-shot episodes and character development. I like Michael O'Hare as an actor, but I don't think he quite worked as Sinclair here; better work is done by the supporting case, though, particularly as the duo of Peter Jurrasik and Andreas Kastulas find their comfort zones.
All in all, Season One is well worth watching so long as you're willing to accept a few bumps in the road - it isn't perfect, but you can see where JMS is going. By Season Two, you realize how good the show can be.
A fine, if faltering, beginning to the epic September 30, 2008
A. Whitehead (Colchester, Essex United Kingdom)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
By 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation was a smash-hit, the biggest and most successful space-based SF show in history pulling in over ten million viewers weekly. It was unsurprising that other studios would start looking for a piece of Paramount's space opera pie. Warner Brothers chose to go with a proposal by J. Michael Straczynski, a respected scriptwriter with a huge output and a solid background working in animation and on live-action shows such as Captain Power and Murder She Wrote. JMS, as he prefers to be known, had created an ambitious five-year plan. Unlike other series, Babylon 5 would have an unifying 'story arc' that would progress throughout the series. Characters would die, empires would fall and others would rise to replace them, but these epic events would be told through a relatively small number of characters located on a single space station.
Season 1's role in the narrative is to introduce the races, concepts and underlying themes of the series. There is a huge amount going on, and it's impossible to deny that JMS has created a fantastically rich universe. In many ways it is the antithesis of Star Trek. Earth is riven by corruption and political dissent, and ranks only somewhere around the middle on the technological scale, centuries behind races like the Minbari, and they don't even have artificial gravity (B5 and the larger Earth warships have to spin to simulate gravity; most ships are weightless environments). There's also a concentration on the 'little man', with several episodes focusing on the homeless and working class of the station, and one even heavily featuring labour and union relations of the 23rd Century. However, there are also several major space battles and some very impressive early CGI, most of which still stands up well today (aside from the slight problem that the CGI shots were not rendered at full film quality, meaning they look a little fuzzy on DVD, but not enough to impair enjoyment of the show).
Season 1 mostly consists of stand-alone episodes, but each episode usually has something to add to the overall tapestry of the story, and the late-season episodes Eyes and Chrysalis do an excellent job of showing what role those apparently unrelated tales in the grander narrative. The quality of the episodes and performances also varies tremendously. A key problem is Michael O'Hare as Sinclair, whose performance is a little too stoic and stiff. When he is forced to come to life, he overacts somewhat badly. Notably his better performances come when he strikes the right note between the two, but these moments are rare throughout the first season. Elsewhere the cast is first-rate, particularly the late Andreas Katsulas as Narn Ambassador G'Kar and Peter Jurasik as Centauri Ambassador Londo Mollari. Both have comic elements to them and the actors pull them off, but it is the dramatic tension between them as their races squabble for power that impresses the most. Jerry Doyle also makes an impression as Garibaldi. Not a trained actor (he was a stockbroker before taking on the role), he lacks confidence at the start of the season but improves throughout.
Of the episodes, the highlights are And the Sky Full of Stars, in which Sinclair starts uncovering why the Minbari gave up on the brink of their victory; Signs and Portents, in which Londo inadvertantly strikes a bargain with an enigmatic faction; Babylon Squared, a time travel story in which we get some clues as to what is going to happen several years down the line; and the magnificent Chrysalis, one of the best episodes of TV SF ever, which gives the viewer the feeling that the writer has gone completely insane, torn up the show's bible and now anything can happen. However, to balance this out are episodes which are simply dire, such as Infection, Mind War (despite a heroic performance by former Star Trek alumni Walter Koenig as Psi Cop Bester), TKO and Grail.
Season 1 of Babylon 5 (*** ) successfully intrigues the viewer in this vivid and fascinating world. It is well worth a look, even if it fails to match the dizzying heights of the successive two seasons.
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