Discovering Babylon 5

As a geek I am absolutely, positively, embarrassed to admit that I have never watched Babylon 5. Yes, yes, I know, I have probably lost a few of my dedicated readers but then again by admitting that I've probably picked up a few. If you were like me you passed this seemingly low-budget space opera by the first time around because it delved just a little too much into geek land. I mean, sure I'll watch Star Trek: TNG (That's Star Trek: The Next Generation for the uninitiated.) I am also a huge Star Wars geek but in the early to mid-nineties, if you were like me at all, you were consuming mass quantities of beer and hanging out in cool joints that played only the most ironic alternative music. Nobody I knew was geeking out about Babylon 5. None of the girls I was trying to pick up while whipping my long mane around and brandishing my NIN (again that's Nine Inch Nails!) t-shirt, were following the adventures of the last outpost of galactic accord.

The first breath I heard of Babylon 5 came from a former employer who was a huge science fiction fan. I mean, she collected Star Wars figures before ebay ever existed! She also had to hide the fact that she was a huge geek. I remember once, her speaking in whispers to a college of ours about the show and how the creator promised a five-year story arc, a virtual novel on television. If you remember the time when Babylon 5 was in its first run the television was owned by king Seinfeld, and rightfully so. The show had innovative comedy. It reinvented the sitcom the way Nirvana reinvented rock and roll. Seinfeld for all its greatness was not a science fiction show even if Jerry did have a fascination with Superman. When I heard that Babylon 5 had a long arc that spanned seasons and was not a reset show like Star Trek but a continuing storyline more like Star Wars, I was intrigued but not enough. I thought, that's a great thing but it can't happen.