Babylon 5: The Complete First Season: Signs and Portents
pub: DVD: Warner Brothers Z1 24168. 22*42 minute episodes plus extras. Price: Varies from around £60 to £30, so look around for the best deal) stars: Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry Doyle, Claudia Christian, Mira Furlan, Peter Jurasik and Andrea Katsulas and many others.

check out website: www.babylon5.com

After Earth President Santiago's death, things are in motion - mostly off camera - before the start of the new season of 'Babylon 5: The Coming Of Shadows'. Sinclair is recalled to Earth and reassigned to Minbar as ambassador.

A jarhead in the form of Captain John Sheridan - called 'Starkiller' by some Minbari for the way he destroyed one of their vessels in the Earth-Minbari War - arrives. Garibaldi is revived through the alien deux ex machina device from the previous season. Ivanova rises to the rank of Commander.

We then move on to the serious stuff where with the help of Mr Morden and his associates, the Shadows, a war between the Narn and Centauri comes to a head. The Centauri win and get the urge to develop their empire again, moving in on some of the unaligned worlds. Oh, and we also get to see what Kosh looks like under his encounter suit.

Did I miss anything? Oh fur shure. There's twenty-two episodes here including three voice-overs. Two with writer/producer Joe Straczynski and another with members of the cast - Boxleitner, Doyle and Christian - which throws some insight into the episodes from all levels.

If I have to detail all the episodes, you're never going to go out and buy your own copy of this season. You'll also have been somewhat amiss and not seeing B5 went it was first on TV. If you have missed this before, then this is the season where things start to hot up and you need to watch before season 3.

There's also 4 featurettes covering episode production, winning the Hugo Awards twice and info packs on the major characters, technology, etc from this season. The only minor flaw that had me chuckling that no one spotted was everyone's favourite Psi-Corps policeman being named 'Andrew Bester'!!!

Someone must have been tired on late watch. Best line from the voice-overs was Straczynski answering the question of how fast the Starfuries flew being 'the speed of plot'. Great series and something all SF fans should have in their collections.

Geoff Willmetts

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