Review of Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers

Introduction

We live for The One, we die for The One.

This is the mission of the Anla-Shok, the mysterious force better known as the Rangers, a force of light in the Babylon 5 universe. Made up mostly of Minbari and Humans, this order of warrior-priests (although not religious in the strictest sense) patrol the frontiers protecting the weak and helpless members of the Interstellar Alliance forged by President John Sheridan during the main run of Babylon 5.

David Martell (Dylan Neal) is second in command of a ship that is ambushed by a mass of Raiders that have been preying on shipping. The Rangers have a code that states that they do not withdraw from combat once they have engaged, but Martell is faced with no other real choice when the Raiders disable both their weapons and engines to such a degree that a single hit will finish them off. Martell believes that to chase the Raiders with no weapons will be a pointless death for his crew, and this action brings him into disrepute with the Minbari ruling Gray Council, as well as invoking some hostility from other Minbari members of the Rangers.

A timely intervention from the old and wise (and wise-cracking) Narn ambassador G`Kar (Andreas Katsulas), as well as his crew threatening to leave as well, saves Martell from being expelled from the organisation. Instead, he is given command of the Liandra, an old Ranger ship that lost its entire crew complement and disappeared off the radar for over a week. The word is that the ship is cursed, and the word isn`t far wrong.

A simple escort mission leads to Martell being challenged as never before, on an adventure featuring space battles, betrayal, ghosts in the machine and a teeny weeny bit of human trickery…

Video

Whilst televisual special effects quality has improved, its clearly not a patch on the larger budgets available to the big film studios. That said, the effects on this are another step forward from the last B5 escapade. One thing that still niggles at me though is the apparent graininess of the picture. It`s not something that is present in every shot, but it`s there enough for you to notice it. I thought originally that it may have been something to do with the initial NTSC broadcast, but I`ve seen enough US series on DVD now to wonder if that`s really the case.

Audio

A Dolby 2.0 Stereo soundtrack, but this was a TV production. Chris Franke (ex-Tangerine Dream) makes a welcome return as composer for this production.

Features

Disappointingly, nothing.

Conclusion

J.Michael Straczynski is a genius as far as I`m concerned. He created the Babylon 5 universe and created an epic series that lasted five years, with some of the story arcs lasting just as long and in a much more satisfying way than Chris Carter managed with the X-Files which was at its peak at virtually the same time. Babylon 5 was always compared to DS9 by critics at the time, and that was a bit understandable. They were both set on space stations, and erm, that`s about it. To me, Babylon 5 was always richer in both storyline and tight writing. Straczynski was never afraid to leave tantalising clues and then literally just leave you dangling. He also made very intelligent use of current and past (sometimes mythical as well) events and either make reference to them or update them into his scripts.

I was very disappointed when Babylon 5 eventually came to its end, and sadder when Crusade (the potential successor) was cancelled in mid-flow of its premier season. On the other hand, this may well have been a good thing and its saviour. The interest in Babylon 5 has not diminished and fans are getting tantalising glimpses of the B5 universe now and again with new releases. Conversely, it looked as if the Star Trek franchise was going from strength to strength, but both Voyager and Enterprise have fallen by the wayside, with the latter being unceremoniously dumped.

While another instalment of B5 is very welcome, it doesn`t ultimately live up to the series from which it has evolved. That`s not all bad though, as it was clearly meant as a pilot rather than a stand-alone film and The Gathering (for those with a long memory) wasn`t that stunning either. There are a number of things that do save this from being bad, namely Andreas Katsulas (who strides across the B5 universe like a colossus), Straczynski`s brilliant writing that this time couples the drama with more than a sprinkling of comedy and wry comment, and focussing on the one group that B5 fans want to see more of. Dylan Neal is rather good as the main hero, but is a little too square-jawed, while Alex Zahara and Jennie Rebecca Hogan as the Minbari second in command Dulann and Narn engineer Na`Feel respectively give strong solid performances. I`d like to have seen more of those characters.

On the minus side, G`Kar does feel like a bit of a bridge between old and new in this, and his shining presence detracts from the newer characters. I wanted to see more of him, and wasn`t as concerned as I should have been that more of him would have meant less of others. On the other hand I really wanted to see less of Myriam Sirois as the feisty weapons officer, Sarah Cantrell. I wasn`t particularly taken by her initially, but it got worse with the holo-targetting system that replaced the more usual tactical desk of most other series. I can see that Straczynski wanted to try something a little different but I`m guessing this would have been one of the things to go if this had moved to a series. Luckily, weapons were down more than once to allow the plot to progress so we saw a lot less of this than we might have done otherwise.

The main thing that disappoints though is that the role model Ranger is Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) from the original series. Cole was a contemplative man, cool, very British and the epitome of what the Rangers stood for. Whilst Neal does a good job, it just doesn`t compare with Carter.

Overall, it was a worthy attempt at something new. Ultimately it failed as the 2002 pilot never progressed to a series, but it`s still good and a worthy addition to the B5 canon. It`s not perfect, but it`s still miles better than the average Trek episode. It`s just a shame that the potential contained here was never realised in quite the same way as the series that started it all.