Babylon 5,J. Michael Straczynski’s landmark science fiction series, has a new streaming home. All five seasons of the series are now streaming onPrime Video.
The series was the brainchild of Straczynski; he has since gone on to write the filmsChangelingandNinja Assassin, and co-created the Netflix seriesSense8withLana and Lily Wachowski. Produced by Warner Bros. Television, it premiered in syndication in 1993, running there for four seasons before its fifth and final season aired on TNT. The series was often seen as a rival to contemporary science fiction TV seriesStar Trek: Deep Space Nine, which also took place on a space station and centered around the delicate peace between several alien species. It was far less episodic than many TV series of the time; each episode was seen as a chapter in an ongoing, serialized story, making it a precursor to many modern TV shows. It was also one of the first series to use the then-novel medium of the internet to cultivate its fanbase, as Straczynski and the show’s other creators frequently went online to discuss the series with their fans.
What is ‘Babylon 5’ About?
Babylon 5takes place in the year 2257, on the space station of the same name. Humanity has ventured into space, and engaged in devastating wars with several alien species. Now, all species mingle and do business on Babylon 5, even as intergalactic tensions simmer both within and without. The station was initially commanded by Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O’Hare); after O’Hare left the series after a single season for personal reasons, the station’s reins were taken by John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner). Other notable inhabitants of the station include second-in-command Susan Ivanona (Claudia Christian), security chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle), and a number of alien ambassadors, including the serene Delenn (Mira Furlan), the self-righteous G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas), and the mercurial Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik).
Although the series ended in 1998, it has had a long afterlife. The spinoff seriesCrusade, which took place five years after the end of the series, was canceled after a single season on TNT, and several abortive spinoffs followed that never progressed past the polit stage. Last year, the series' surviving cast members reunited for an animated feature,Babylon 5: The Road Home. Recently, Straczynski has been working on areboot of the series, which is in development at The CW.
Babylon 5isnow streaming on Prime Video. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
