After last week’s high water mark for the series thus far, we once again find the tide is going out. But it doesn’t go out all the way, and it’s not so low that we can see the mud. Between the coda of this episode, and the coda of the previous one, the show is showing a sudden and impressive penchant for the whole “sense of wonder and awe” thing that Star Trek had lost all interest in by this point.

Frack! My first review evaporated in a computer crash.

Ok, starting again:

Just humor me on this one, it‘s total epic wankery:

I know you, like everyone else, assume that space SHIPS will eventually be just like Navy SHIPS because they’ve got SHIP in the name, even though airSHIPS had the exact same logic behind them, and that turned out to be ludicrous and led to their demise. By the same coin, I think SPACE ships will not be like WATER ships because they’re in SPACE. It seems self-evident to me that they’ll follow some kind of Air Force structure, since they fly. I come from an Air Force family. (Though one of my uncles was brown shoe navy)

Babylon 5 was intended to go into production immediately after the pilot wrapped in 1993, but financing fell apart, and the whole thing lingered in limboland until January of ‘94 when the series itself was launched. As with any series, there are a lot of obvious changes between the pilot and the series proper, but here we have more than most. Not only was there the long delay, but much of the cast was fired, and the entire production was moved to a new studio across town, with many sets being redesigned, abandoned, or trashed in the process.