Origin Having worked on a number of television science fiction shows which had regularly gone over budget, Straczynski concluded that a lack of long-term planning was to blame, and set about looking at ways in which a series could be done responsibly. Taking note of the lessons of mainstream television, which brought stories to a centralized location such as a hospital, police station, or law office, he decided that instead of "[going] in search of new worlds, building them anew each week", a fixed space station setting would keep costs at a reasonable level. A fan of sagas such as the
Foundation series, ''
Childhood's End, The Lord of the Rings, Dune and the Lensman
series, Straczynski wondered why no one had done a television series with the same epic sweep, and concurrently with the first idea started developing the concept for a vastly ambitious epic covering massive battles and other universe-changing events. Realizing that both the fixed-locale series and the epic could be done in a single series, he began to sketch the initial outline of what would become Babylon 5''. Straczynski set five goals for
Babylon 5. He said that the show "would have to be good science fiction". It would also have to be good television, "and rarely are SF shows both good SF *and* good TV; there're generally one or the other." It would have to do for science fiction television what
Hill Street Blues had done for
police dramas, by taking an adult approach to the subject. It would have to be reasonably budgeted, and "it would have to look unlike anything ever seen before on TV, presenting individual stories against a much broader canvas." He further stressed that his approach was "to take [science fiction] seriously, to build characters for grown-ups, to incorporate real science but keep the characters at the center of the story." Some of the staples of television science fiction were also out of the question (the show would have "no kids or cute robots"). The idea was not to present a perfect utopian future, but one with greed and homelessness; one where characters grow, develop, live, and die; one where not everything was the same at the end of the day's events. Citing
Mark Twain as an influence, Straczynski said he wanted the show to be a mirror to the real world and to covertly teach. They were able to secure an order for the pilot from
Warner Bros. who were looking at the time to get programming for a planned broadcast network. Warner Bros. had remained skeptical about the show even after greenlighting the pilot. According to Straczynski, Warner Bros. had three main concerns: that American attention spans were too short for a series-long narrative to work, that it would be difficult to sell the show into
syndication as the syndicate networks would air the episodes out of order, and that no other science-fiction television show outside of
Star Trek had gone more than three seasons before being canceled. Straczynski had proved out that the syndication fear was incorrect, since syndicate stations told him they show their shows in episode order to track broadcasts for royalties; however, he could not assure Warner Bros. about the attention span or premature cancellation concerns, but still set out to show Warner Bros. they were wrong. a feat never before accomplished in American television. Other writers to have contributed scripts to the show include
Peter David,
Neil Gaiman,
Kathryn M. Drennan,
Lawrence G. DiTillio,
D. C. Fontana, and
David Gerrold.
Harlan Ellison, a creative consultant on the show, received story credits for two episodes. Each writer was informed of the overarching storyline, enabling the show to be produced consistently under-budget. The rules of production were strict; scripts were written six episodes in advance, and changes could not be made once production had started. With not all cast members being hired for every episode of a season, the five-year plot length caused some planning difficulties. If a critical scene involving an actor not hired for every episode had to be moved, that actor had to be paid for work on an extra episode. Straczynski stated, "As a writer, doing a long-term story, it'd be dangerous and short-sighted for me to construct the story without trap doors for every single character. ... That was one of the big risks going into a long-term storyline which I considered long in advance;..." This device was eventually used to facilitate the departures of Claudia Christian and Andrea Thompson from the series. Straczynski purposely went light on elements of the five-year narrative during the first season as he felt the audience would not be ready for the full narrative at that time, but he still managed to drop in some scenes that would be critical to the future narrative. This also made it challenging for the actors to understand their motivations without knowing where their characters were going; Straczynski said "I didn't want to tell them too much, because that risks having them play the result, rather than the process." The intended series finale, "
Sleeping in Light", was filmed during season four as a precaution against cancellation. When word came that TNT had picked up
Babylon 5, this was moved to the end of season five and replaced with a newly filmed season four finale, "
The Deconstruction of Falling Stars".
Costume Ann Bruice Aling was costume designer for the show, after
production designer John Iacovelli suggested her for the position, having previously worked with her on a number of film and theatrical productions. With the variety of costumes required she compared
Babylon 5 to "eclectic theatre", with fewer rules about period, line, shape and textures having to be adhered to. Preferring natural materials whenever possible, such as
ostrich leather in the
Narn body armor, Bruice combined and layered fabrics as diverse as rayon and silk with
brocades from the 1930s and '40s to give the clothing the appearance of having evolved within different cultures. With an interest in costume history, she initially worked closely with Straczynski to get a sense of the historical perspective of the major alien races, "so I knew if they were a peaceful people or a warring people, cold climate etc. and then I would interpret what kind of sensibility that called for." These warm shades of gray and secondary colors, such as certain blues for the
Minbari, would often be included when designing both the costumes and relevant sets. As the main characters evolved, Bruice referred back to Straczynski and producer John Copeland who she viewed as "surprisingly more accessible to me as advisors than other producers and directors", so the costumes could reflect these changes. Ambassador
Londo Mollari's purple coat became dark blue and more tailored while his waistcoats became less patterned and brightly colored as Bruice felt "Londo has evolved in my mind from a buffoonish character to one who has become more serious and darker."
Visuals In anticipation of the emerging
HDTV standard, rather than the usual
4:3 format, the series was shot in
16:9, with the image cropped to 4:3 for initial television transmissions. It was one of the first television shows to use computer technology in creating
visual effects, rather than models and miniatures, primarily out of budgetary concerns; Straczynski estimated that each of their episodes cost to make, compared to the cost of each episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation. The effects sequences were designed to simulate
Newtonian physics, with particular emphasis on the effects of inertia on the motion of spacecraft.
Foundation Imaging provided the special effects for the pilot film (for which it won an Emmy) and the first three seasons of the show, led by
Ron Thornton. After co-executive producer Douglas Netter and producer John Copeland approached Straczynski with the idea of producing the effects in-house, Straczynski agreed to replace Foundation, for season 4 and 5, once a new team had been established by
Netter Digital, and an equal level of quality was assured, by using similar technology and a number of former Foundation employees. The Emmy-winning alien make-up was provided by Optic Nerve Studios.
Music and scoring Christopher Franke composed and
scored the musical soundtrack for all five years of the show when
Stewart Copeland, who worked on the original telefilm, was unable to return for the first season due to recording and touring commitments. Initially concerned composing for an episodic television show could become "annoying because of the repetition", Franke found the evolving characters and story of
Babylon 5 afforded him the opportunity to continually take new directions. With his recording studio in the same building as his home located in the
Hollywood Hills, Franke would attend creative meetings before scoring the 25 minutes or so of music for each episode. Scores for the acoustic tracks were emailed to his Berlin scoring stage, and would require from four musicians to the full orchestra, with a maximum of 24 present at any one time. One of three conductors would also be required for any score that involved more than six musicians. Franke would direct recording sessions via six fiber optic digital telephone lines to transmit and receive video, music and the
SMPTE timecode. The final edit and mixing of the tracks would take place in his Los Angeles studio. A total of 24 episode and three television film soundtracks were released under Franke's record label, Sonic Images Records, between 1995 and 2001. These contain the musical scores in the same chronological order as they played in the corresponding episodes, or television films. Three compilation albums were also produced, containing extensively re-orchestrated and remixed musical passages taken from throughout the series to create more elaborate suites. In 2007, his soundtrack for
The Lost Tales was released under the
Varèse Sarabande record label.
Broadcast history Warner Bros. slotted the show to premiere on its nascent
Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). As original content from another studio, it was somewhat anomalous in a stable of syndicated content from Warner Bros. and the cause of some friction between Straczynski's company and Warner Bros. The regular series initially aired from January 26, 1994 through November 25, 1998, first on PTEN, then in
first-run syndication, debuting with a 6.8 rating/10 share. Figures dipped in its second week, and while it posted a solid 5.0 rating/8 share, with an increase in several major markets, ratings for the first season continued to fall, to a low of 3.4 during
reruns. Ratings remained low-to-middling throughout the first four seasons, but
Babylon 5 scored well with the
demographics required to attract the leading national sponsors and saved up to $300,000 per episode by shooting off the studio lot, The fifth season, which aired on cable network
TNT, had ratings about 1.0% lower than seasons two through four. In the United Kingdom, the show aired every week on
Channel 4 without a break, with the result that the last four or five episodes of the early seasons screened in the UK before the US.
Babylon 5 was one of the better-rated US television shows on Channel 4, and achieved high audience
Appreciation Indexes, with the season 4 episode
"Endgame" achieving the rare feat of beating the prime-time soap operas for first position. Straczynski stated that PTEN only required the show to be profitable for the network to remain in production, and said that while this was the case for its first four seasons, on paper it was always losing money; he also remarked in a 2019 interview that in terms of
contractual profit definition the show remained about in the red on paper, and stated that he had therefore never made any profits on
Babylon 5.
Babylon 5 completed its five-year story arc on November 25, 1998, after five seasons and 109 aired episodes, when TNT aired the 110th (
epilogue) episode "
Sleeping in Light," which had been filmed as the Season 4 finale, when
Babylon 5 was under threat of being cut. After a fifth season was assured, a new Season 4 finale was used so that "
Sleeping in Light" could remain as the series finale.
Remastered version In November 2020, a remastered version of the show in 4:3 format was released to the iTunes Store and Amazon Prime Video. This version uses the original negatives for filmed elements, and algorithmically upscales the digitally created elements to HD resolution with fewer visual artifacts, for a more visually consistent presentation. In January 2021, it was made available for streaming on
HBO Max. In February 2023, HBO's license expired and streaming rights were acquired by the free streaming service Tubi. == Themes ==