Babylon 5 - Series 2 Box Set (6 Discs)

Whilst it would take season 3 to really hit its stride, the second series of Babylon 5 lays the necessary foundations to take us to war. With the risky change of commanders (the more accessible Bruce "Tron" Boxleitner taking the reigns from respectable O'Hare) it proved to be a positive change over time.

The stories in this series range from stand alone episodes such as GROPOS to the more arc-heavy Coming of Shadows, but it's here that B5 began to prove it had a weight of intellect and a purpose, especially when viewed next to the rather stale Deep Space 9.

The special effects are starting to show their age, but the writing shines through. If you're looking for a Sci Fi epic, this is for you, especially at this price.

The complete series was spread over five years with year one setting the stage, storylines, and characters, years 2 to 5 should have been the rest of the story but the networks only gave the author one more year after season 3 so he compressed the two years of storylines that he had prepared into the fourth season. The networks then allowed another year so the fifth season was not "by popular demand" at all but was essentially a number of episodes that expanded on the previous work. If the networks had kept out of it there would have been more content in seasons 3 and 4 with the finale in Season 5 as the author had planned. Having said all that, Babylon 5 IS one of the best scifi stories ever made ( a lot of people would say THE best), and my advice to anyone (scifi buff/fan or just someone looking for something different, thought provoking, exciting, top acting and direction) is just start at season 1 and buy/rent/borrow/steal the lot. You won't regret it.

Much has been made of how B5 takes a while to get going, personally I found this season less enthralling than the first. New Captain Sheridan is a bit annoying at first, and many of the early episodes here have a more pronounced cheese factor than anything in season 1. It does get better as it goes though, and The Coming of Shadows episode is very good indeed. Some stoylines just appear from nowhere (the Talia exit story is just weird) certain characters disappear for many episodes at a time, and you still get the feeling that much of it is groundwork for when the 'real story' kicks off in season 3. To be honest, I was considering giving up wth the series at one point, but the final set of episodes are pretty good and the finale really got me interested in the next season. So now I'm converted to a B5 fan and will be getting season 3.

At this price any sci-fi fan should give it a go. You may not like it all, but the strength of the writing shines through most of the time