ard to believe it's been nearly a decade since J. Michael Straczynski first brought the Babylon 5 universe to life. Now, the series finally has its debut on DVD—with very mixed results. Two full-length telefilms are packed onto two sides of a single DVD—the series' 1993 pilot, "The Gathering," and the TNT movie "In the Beginning." And if you've never seen Babylon 5 and have always wondered what the fuss was about, there's no time like the present; this DVD is a good place to start.
Although the first season of B5 was a bit uneven, "The Gathering" is tightly paced, and does a good job of setting up one of the most complicated story arcs in science fiction. Since Ambassador Kosh is first arriving on the station—and everything at the Babylon 5 station is indeed so new—Straczynski makes it easy to introduce viewers to the action. After the terrors of the Earth-Minbari War, the station was constructed as the galaxy's last, best hope for peace. Now, in our own era of wartime, the station's mantra has a new resonance—and it's easy to become caught up in the intrigue as Commander Sinclair investigates who waylaid the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh.
"In the Beginning" is the best of the three stand-alone feature-length telefilms Straczynski did for TNT in the late 1990s. This tale of how a misunderstanding led to a destructive war between humans and Minbari also carries new meaning when viewed today. Plus, the movie acts as both a prequel and sequel to the series itself, which is no small feat; sometime in the distant future from the events depicted in the Babylon 5 series, a markedly aged Centauri Emperor Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik) relates the story of the Earth-Minbari War to two mischievous Centauri children who wander into his room by mistake. Although Delenn (Furlan) is the most prominent familiar face found in "In the Beginning," the movie manages to introduce many other faces we'll come to know over the course of the series—including Sheridan (Boxleitner), Sinclair (O'Hare), Susan Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and Dr. Stephen Franklin (Richard Biggs).
Not to detract from "In the Beginning"'s ability to stand on its own, separate from the Babylon 5 saga, but the movie was produced far into Babylon 5's run. Newcomers should beware that to watch this movie before seeing the rest of the series might spoil some of the surprises to come later on.
Good films—but sadly, nothing else
After years of anticipation, Babylon 5 fans will be disappointed by the first release of Babylon 5 on DVD. Let's be clear: The rating given to this DVD does not reflect the quality of the two Babylon 5 telefilms presented here (bump the rating to B+ if you're only looking at the films themselves). Instead, the rating reflects how Warner's first DVD release of the groundbreaking sci-fi series is a colossal failure—the ultimate example of what a studio shouldn't do when bringing a series to DVD.
That said, read on for why you should buy this DVD anyway.
First off, the movies are presented on a dual-sided disc, so you have to flip discs if you want to see both movies (by contrast, four or more episodes of The X-Files can fit on a disc in Fox's DVD sets). There are none of the filmmaking extras that have come to be expected from a DVD release—no behind-the-scenes footage, no cutscenes, no running commentary from Straczynski. In fact, Straczynski had no input into the production of this DVD at all; his level of involvement was limited to approving the artwork cover. The navigation menus are nothing special, either; the Babylon 5 Web site from years past did a better job of mimicking the look and feel of the series than these straightforward menus do.
"The Gathering" isn't presented in any special manner—the pops and crackles in the soundtrack aren't even cleaned up for digital presentation, and the movie is shown in pan-and-scan. On the plus side, though, the version of "The Gathering" shown here is the re-edited version shown on the SCI FI Channel and released in overseas markets. In addition to nips and tucks here and there, this version most notably features music by B5 musician Christopher Franke, and not Stewart Copeland, who wrote the original soundtrack.
"In the Beginning" is at least shown in widescreen, and even though the effects look amazing in this ambitious installment, there are times when the quality of the video encoding is questionable (we saw artifacting in several scenes).
So why not skip this release and wait for the next one? The sad truth is that Warner is doing this as almost a stealth release, with minimal promotion—and no known commitment to releasing the series on DVD, in spite of the fact that the entire series is DVD-ready, since all of the episodes were shot in widescreen format by its forward-looking producers. The prospect for future releases will depend upon how much interest is shown in this first release.
On the plus side, at least the disc is retailing for a very reasonable $14.98, and if you're a savvy Web shopper, you might even be able to do a little better. If you're a B5 fan, the ability to pop in a DVD and scan to your favorite parts makes the DVD worth that modest price alone. And if you've thought of buying the video, but never did, the DVD is a better option. We can only hope that Warner will eventually re-release both of these films as part of a bigger release of B5 episodic DVDs—preferably in season boxed sets, as was done in the United Kingdom.
