“The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A
self-contained world, five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of
commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining
beacon in space, all alone in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of
mankind. The year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last
of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5." -- John Sheridan
SHERIDAN, BABY!!
That's right - I'm now well into Season 2 of my detailed re-watch of Babylon 5. (See how the opening quote has changed?) The re-watch is part of my research for Dreams Given Form, which will be an unprecedented guide to the universe of JMS's brilliant, long-arc show that I'm co-authoring for ECW Press, scheduled to be released sometime in 2016. As I've said here before, deeply re-watching Season 1 brought me new insights, including an almost complete revising of my opinion about the character of Jeffrey Sinclair. (Further, knowing what we now know about the seven hells Michael O'Hare, the actor who brought Sinclair to life, was going through, I get chills watching a few scenes in that season, I can tell you. Not sure what I'm talking about? Click here.)
But for now, Sinclair is serving as Earth's first ambassador to Minbar and John Sheridan has been plucked from his rootin', tootin', shootin' command of a Omega-class destroyer to ride herd over the diplomatic squabbles of dozens of races on B5. It's a post he's not especially suited for, in part because of his role in the Earth-Minbari war, in which he managed to destroy the Minbari flagship through trickery. That action made him a hero on Earth, but the Minbari refer to him as "Starkiller," making him a very unlikely choice to command B5.
However, life is strange and it'll get stranger. But now it comes with oranges!
PS - I should probably mention at this point that Sheridan [along with Buffy] served at the cake-topper at my wedding. Make of that what you will.
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