Babylon 5 - The Lost Tales [DVD]

Let me start by stating an interest: I think that "Babylon 5" was one of the best sci-fi series ever to air on television. The grandeur of the story arc, the vision and inventiveness of its creator, the liveliness of its scripting, and its excellent ensemble casting all came together to make something worth watching again and again. This was a future you could believe in. You might not particularly like the idea of living in it, but you could believe in it.

And as a fan I bought and watched this latest offering, ending up with mixed feelings. The stories are not bad, if nothing special - they would have made good A or B storylines in a normal "Babylon 5" episode. But the sense of the B5 universe is not there, there isn't enough material, and the incredibly bare-bones production values did not help.

For devotees the DVD is worth having, if only because it's more B5 and evokes at the very least nostalgia. For others - well, stay away, it is more likely to put you off than draw you in, which would be a disservice to a great series.

Babylon 5: The Lost Tales - Voices in the Dark is billed by WB as an original movie, but according to B5 writer and creator Straczynski, the Lost Tales is supposed to be an anthology show. Standalone stories, personally focussed, small scale. And that's exactly what we get; don't go in expecting arcs on the scale of the original show's Shadow War, or even Crusade's Drakh Plague. And don't go in expecting the ensemble cast of the original show either. Since these were the biggest strengths of original B5 the expectation might be logical, but it would lead to disappointment.

On top of this very different focus in format, it is evident that Straczynski, who also took on the director's role for this disc explicitly to figure out how to make the format work for future episodes, is very much still experimenting and feeling out boundaries. What is achievable with the tight budgets, what can be done with the extremely green-screen focused set work, and what type of stories would be appropriate for something that is supposed to have as unique a release schedule as this.

The stories become fairly condensed because of the format. The writer has had a tendency in the past to let some of his smaller idea based plots get away from him, and to some extent this is also present in the first plot, which features some slight dialog redundancies. But perhaps because of the limitations the writing in both stories maintains a fairly tight focus, getting to the point with mostly engaging dialog and storytelling.

The first story might not sit well with everyone, since it features a type of storytelling that while appropriate to the anthology format, feels a bit out of place in B5. It's still an interesting addition to the universe, and this anthology format does really call out for some experimenting with new story forms, even if some of those experiments may fail. The second story feels very old-school Babylon 5, marrying a personal moral dilemma with an event that could change everything on a galactic scale. And as with original B5, it features a lot of prophetic foreshadowing, without in the end actually resolving how the visions seen will pan out, leaving open some explicit and interesting hooks for future stories.

Most of this disc's problems are those of a production crew that is figuring out production issues and coming to grips with a new format, much like season 1 of the original show. In great contrast with something like Legend of the Rangers, TLT like the early days of the original does show evidence of having a good foundation at its core. (Rangers could have grown into something, but the pilot had serious problems conveying any sort of depth.) This is a good thing; the issue is one of "why didn't they go further" rather than "why did they bother at all". And a slow start doesn't have to be a bad thing, as the original show showed us.

Overall, this disc has left at least this viewer very hopeful for the future. Even with the constraints they had for the first offering they managed to produce something compelling. And production, scale, and budget issues are things that can be figured out. Which is something the production team seems to be pushing for, as evidenced by this quote I'll offer as closing:

"Any further B5 DVDs will depend on the sales, and on Warner Brothers giving us sufficient money to take the step of making any subsequent DVDs bigger than this one," says Straczynski. "This was kind of a test of the concept of making what is essentially a series on DVD, which hasn't really been done before. But it was a test, with a very modest budget. If we do more, they have to be done with a larger budget so we can involve more of our cast members, do bigger FX and locations and the like. If we can't keep making them better, then they shouldn't be done."

I really wanted to like this and to be objective, but....
I have been a B5 fan since day one, I've done the conventions, got the autographs, read the books, worn the t-shirt etc etc so I was thrilled at the prospect of a bit more of the B5 Universe, perhaps the fantastic Serenity also suggested that a phoenix could rise from the flames...
But no, this doesn't work on a number of levels, lack of cast, lack of action, characterisation was slightly off and the excuses for the missing cast members were a little painful.
JMS's writing and dialogue was up to the usual standards but the stories were either too clever or too obvious.
It was great to have it back but that added to the disappointment to be honest. In order to test myself, I watched Legends of the Rangers again straight away, and for all it's flaws I think I preferred it.
This is not good value for money for a pair of cheap character driven stories and I would have to suggest you hold off buying it.