Someone please educate me on the Babylon 5 movies and where they fit in within the series. Are they just collected episodes from a given season or do they stand alone during or between seasons?

The Babylon 5 movies are not collected episodes. The Gathering is the pilot episode for the show that aired in 1993. It was re-edited in 1998 by JMS to make it less crappy (more or less that was the reason). You can watch this before any of the episodes.

In The Beginning is a prequel movie that first aired in 1998. It tells the story of the Minbari War that took place 10 years before the 1st season. If you wish to watch the series completely spoiler free, do not watch this until you've finished seeing Season 4.

Thirdspace is a completely stand-alone movie that aired in 1998 and takes place in the middle of Season 4. I would not watch this until after Season 4, and it really has nothing to do with story arc of the show.

The River of Souls was the next movie that came out in 1998 and it takes place shortly after Season 5. As with Thirdspace, it's a standalone movie that adds nothing to the show's story arc.

A Call To Arms takes place 5 years after the end of Season 5 and the events that occur in this movie lead directly into the short lived spinoff series Crusade.

Thanks

So where does Legend of the Rangers fit in?

that was really useful, thanks man.
so after the last movie, then you watch crusade, and then you watch that rangers spin off?

also, if thirdspace takes place during the fourth season, should we interrupt season four to watch it instead of watching it between 4 and 5?

not to spam this thread or anything but i googled this and it looks like some purists not only do that (put the movies inside the seasons), but they also watch the episodes in a different order. your thoughts?

I would say the only two movies you have to watch are The Gathering and In the Beginning. Thirdspace and River of Souls have nothing to do with the overall story. I don't even bother watching them most of the time- I don't think they're all that good. Well, River of Souls is kind of fun, but not enough to watch as many times as I've watched the entire series.

If you're going to watch Crusade, watch A Call to Arms before it. It's not strictly necessary as some of the same information is repeated in the series, but it's not a half-bad B5 movie. Make sure you watch Crusade in the JMS-order; the episodes are in production order on the DVD.

Legend of the Rangers you can watch, or burn- it's up to you.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showpos...87&postcount=5

It really doesn't matter much, though, as long as you watch The Gathering first and In the Beginning after Season 4.

das

thanks tracerbullet. could you please elaborate on "jms order"? where do you find it? does he only specify an order for crusade, or for the other shows as well?

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/113.html

I don't think there are any spoilers on that page (and there's really not a lot to spoil) but I wouldn't go past the episode list.

Here's a page that specifies when each episode occurs chronologically. This is the order I would recommend watching everything in... http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countr...er/eplist.html

EXCEPT!!!

Do not watch In The Beginning at the beginning of the series!! It should be watched after the episode Rising Star (the next-to-last episode in Season 4) and before Season 5 starts. Whether you watch ITB or the final Season 4 episode Deconstruction of Falling Stars first is relatively immaterial, since I do not recall anything in Deconstruction that would be spoiled by watching ITB first.

The reason the Lurker's Guide lists ITB first is that the story in that episode is set at a time prior to the establishment of the Babylon 5 station, but it's told from the perspective of a character who has already been though the events of the first 4 years. That character not only gives away many of the surprises that are waiting for a first-time viewer, but the pre-establisment story itself spoils many of the big surprises that aren't revealed until after well into the second season and beyond.

I can't believe the Lurker's Guide recommends that- it's usually great. How stupid.

For those too lazy to link out, or for those who would like a definitive list printed out...

>>>> MOVIE: The Gathering

Season One ("Signs and Portents")

1-01 Midnight on the Firing Line
1-02 Soul Hunter
1-03 Born to the Purple
1-04 Infection
1-05 The Parliament of Dreams
1-06 Mind War
1-07 The War Prayer
1-08 And The Sky Full Of Stars
1-09 Deathwalker
1-10 Believers
1-11 Survivors
1-12 By Any Means Necessary
1-13 Signs and Portents
1-14 Grail
1-15 Eyes
1-16 A Voice in the Wilderness part 1
1-17 A Voice in the Wilderness part 2
1-18 Babylon Squared
1-19 The Quality of Mercy
1-20 TKO
1-21 Legacies
1-22 Chrysalis

Season Two ("The Coming Of Shadows")

2-01 Points of Departure
2-02 Revelations
2-03 The Geometry of Shadows
2-04 A Distant Star
2-05 The Long Dark
2-06 A Spider in the Web
2-07 A Race Through Dark Places
2-08 Soul Mates
2-09 The Coming of Shadows
2-10 GROPOS
2-11 All Alone in the Night
2-12 Acts of Sacrifice
2-13 Hunter, Prey
2-14 There All the Honor Lies
2-15 And Now For a Word
2-16 Knives
2-17 In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
2-18 Confessions and Lamentations
2-19 Divided Loyalties
2-20 The Long, Twilight Struggle
2-21 Comes the Inquisitor
2-22 The Fall of Night

Season Three ("Point of No Return")

3-01 Matters of Honor
3-02 Convictions
3-03 A Day in the Strife
3-04 Passing Through Gethsemane
3-05 *Voices of Authority
3-06 Dust to Dust
3-07 Exogenesis
3-08 Messages from Earth
3-09 Point of No Return
3-10 Severed Dreams
3-11 Ceremonies of Light and Dark
3-12 A Late Delivery From Avalon
3-13 Sic Transit Vir
3-14 Ship of Tears
3-15 Interludes and Examinations
3-16 Walkabout
3-17 War Without End, Part One
3-18 War Without End, Part Two
3-19 Grey 17 Is Missing
3-20 And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place
3-21 Shadow Dancing
3-22 Z'ha'dum

Season Four ("No Surrender, No Retreat")

4-01 The Hour of the Wolf
4-02 Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?
4-03 The Summoning
4-04 Falling Toward Apotheosis
4-05 The Long Night
4-06 Into the Fire
4-07 Epiphanies
4-08 The Illusion of Truth
>>>> MOVIE: Thirdspace
4-09 Atonement
4-10 Racing Mars
4-11 Lines of Communication
4-12 Conflicts of Interest
4-13 Rumors, Bargains and Lies
4-14 Moments of Transition
4-15 No Surrender, No Retreat
4-16 The Exercise of Vital Powers
4-17 The Face of the Enemy
4-18 Intersections in Real Time
4-19 Between the Darkness and the Light
4-20 Endgame
4-21 Rising Star
4-22 The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
>>>> MOVIE Babylon 5: In the Beginning

Season Five ("The Wheel of Fire")

5-01 No Compromises
5-02 The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari
5-03 The Paragon of Animals
5-04 A View from the Gallery
5-05 Learning Curve
5-06 Strange Relations
5-07 Secrets of the Soul
5-08 In the Kingdom of the Blind
5-09 A Tragedy of Telepaths
5-10 Phoenix Rising
5-11 The Ragged Edge
5-12 Day of the Dead
5-13 The Corps is Mother, The Corps is Father
5-14 Meditations on the Abyss
5-15 Darkness Ascending
5-16 And All My Dreams, Torn Asunder
5-17 Movements of Fire and Shadow
5-18 The Fall of Centauri Prime
5-19 Wheel of Fire
5-20 Objects in Motion
5-21 Objects at Rest
>>>> MOVIE: River of Souls
>>>> MOVIE: The Legend of the Rangers
5-22 Sleeping in Light

Crusade

>>>> MOVIE: A Call to Arms
C-01 **Racing the Night
C-02 The Needs of Earth
C-03 The Memory of War
C-04 The Long Road
C-05 Visitors from Down the Street
C-06 The Well of Forever
C-07 Each Night I Dream of Home
C-08 Patterns of the Soul
C-09 The Path of Sorrows
C-10 Ruling from the Tomb
C-11 The Rules of the Game
C-12 War Zone
C-13 Appearances and Other Deceits

* = Voices of Authority was originally meant to air before Passing Through Gethsemane, but since the events of this episode tie into the beginning of Dust to Dust and aren't mentioned at all in Gethsemane the initial airing order is actually an improvement.

** = This ordering, which JMS specified, ignores the uniform change in favor of maintaining continuity of storyline.

Note: A Call To Arms is set in the B5 universe, but it serves to introduce us to the Crusade universe, ship, and several key characters from the new series. With the musical scoring by Evan Chen (vice Christopher Franke who scored all of the B5 episodes/movies), this movie feels more a part of the Crusade storyline than the B5 storyline, which is why I've listed it with the Crusade episodes.

Well, it's not really a recommendation as such. It's more of a listing of which events happen in which order in the B5 universe. The events protrayed in ITB happen well before anything else, so logically it would be listed first.

The key here is to know that much of the storyline in the first 4 seasons is revealed by the character narrating ITB, which from their perspective is perfectly natural. However, from the perspective of a first-time viewer, you would absolutely NOT want to have those spoilers revealed, preferring to enjoy the story as the author intended for it to unfold. That viewer should wait until the end of season 4 so he would share the same perspective as the narrator... then and only then is ITB safe to watch.

Don't do this.

das

I wouldn't. Nothing that happens in it is connected to any of the storylines from that season. It just breaks up the flow. Watch The Gathering, then watch the entire series, and then watch the movies. The exception is In The Beginning, which you could watch after Season 4 and before you start Season 5.

And for those who didn't know, or do care to know - Legend Of The Rangers will finally be making it's DVD debut in March of 2006.

More info at ...

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=4523

We are watching Babylon 5 for the first time. I naturally listened to the season 1 commentary tracks after watching the episodes.

Don't listen to the commentary tracks if you haven't already watched the whole thing.

The commentary tracks include spoilers of future seasons.

After that happened, I'm not even going to B5 fansites.

Then this???

5-20 Objects in Motion
5-21 Objects at Rest
>>>> MOVIE: River of Souls
5-22 Sleeping in Light
>>>> MOVIE: The Legend of the Rangers

If not, what?

Personally, I'd watch The River of Souls after Season 5, then A Call to Arms, then Crusade, and finally The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight, but none of that is important so long as you don't split up "Objects in Motion", "Objects at Rest", and "Sleeping in Light".

das

Ack, that sucks! That usually gets mentioned right away in a B5-newbie thread, too. Stay away from pretty much all of the special features on the discs until you've watched absolutely everything. The commentaries are pretty heavy on the spoilers, but the season introductions tend to be even worse. IIRC, what's supposed to be an introduction to the season, ends up spelling out all of the major plot points that are going to happen over the next six discs.

Here's how the show chronologically breaks down:

However, it's best if the series is watched in this order:

The important thing is that you watch the Babylon 5 main series in order, saving "In the Beginning" for after the fourth season. If you want to watch "Thirdspace" between 4.08 and 4.09, you can, but frankly it isn't that good and nothing important happens in it that will impact the greater arc.

All of the movies (with the exception of In the Beginning and The Gathering) are standalones when it comes to the greater arc of the series. "A Call to Arms" sets up the "Crusade" series, and "Legend of the Rangers" was a movie designed to be a backdoor pilot for a series on SciFi that never happened.

Yeah I think JMS went into it with the idea that anyone watching was a diehard who'd seen it all before, and just wanted some additional background info. Believe it or not, I don't think the thought that newbie's might be checking it out even crossed his mind. I could be wrong, but that's how it comes across to me.

But the again, that seems to be typical of most of the special features I've come across on TV on DVD sets. They all seem to be of the mindset that "you've already seen this, what's to spoil".

Agree with Josh-Da-Man myself.

Watch the series first and then the movies afterwards. Maybe stick 'In the Beginning' in there after S4 but that's it.

The only movies that were any good IMO where In the Beginning and Call to Arms