Sheridan and the colgate smile
Hi everyone,
I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but to me, Babylon 5 became much less interesting after Sinclair left and Sheridan arrived.
Season 1 had an enigmatic, mysterious, psychological, and almost cryptic tone. Sinclair felt like a complex character, haunted by his past. Sheridan, on the other hand, was way too perfect, idealistic, and handsome. Too smooth, without any rough edges. He looked like a guy from an Colgate toothpaste commercial who got lost in the middle of an experimental theater play. He was basically a Starfleet captain lost in the wrong universe. Actually, thinking about it, it's worse than a Starfleet captain. It’s a parody of one. He had that asexual, overly perfect "idealized hero" vibe that Black Mirror mocked so well in the "USS Callister" episode. I love Star Trek, but what made me love Babylon 5 was how different it was from Trek. Sheridan turned a deep, ancient tragedy into a standard, black-and-white military conflict.
Even the storytelling went off the rails at the start of Season 2. For instance, there’s that awful episode where an unknown probe arrives and asks a series of scientific questions, threatening to detonate a nuclear charge if the answers are wrong. At the very last second, Sheridan solves it by guessing it’s a trap. He’s the little genius who finds the solution all by himself. Even 1960s Star Trek didn't dare to do that. Back then, Spock would stare at a green screen to find the solution, and Kirk was in charge of punching things. There was a division of skills. Here, it’s just grotesque.
The showrunner spent three seasons building a complex plot, only to sweep it away in a handful of episodes. The show only got its genius back during the second half of Season 4 with the Earth Civil War. The political drama with President Clark was fantastic, and Garibaldi leaving his "funny guy" role to become a tortured, paranoid, alcoholic, and manipulated character was brilliant. One of the best episodes is the one where Sheridan is imprisoned by a torturer who looks like a petty, blank bureaucrat who is just "following regulations." Very Orwelian perspective.
Which brings me to the conclusion of the Shadow War. To me, that ending felt very simplistic and naive. We spent years building up a cosmic tragedy with billions of deaths, only for Lorien to show up and act like a father catching his two kids doing something stupid, dragging them back home by the ears. It felt too small. The story arc ended as a grotesque farce.
I understand that JMS had to cram Season 4 and Season 5 together because he thought the show was going to be canceled. But because the Shadow War was rushed, the result was disappointing and too easy.
It’s like a slow-cooked stew. You spend hours selecting all the best ingredients: good meat, fresh herbs, fine spices. You sear the meat, you chop the veggies with precision, you put everything in the pot in the right order, and you let it simmer for hours. But at the very last minute, you realize you're out of time. So, you turn the heat up to maximum to finish it quickly. The result? The dish is burned. You still serve it because you don't want to waste it. Every now and then, you bite into a piece of meat that isn't charred, and you think to yourself, "Wow, this could have been excellent." But in the end, you are just left with an immense feeling of waste.
If the show had been given time to breathe, the Shadows wouldn't have been dismissed like schoolboys, and the Earth Civil War would have been the true, properly paced climax.