Babylon 5 - Series 3 Box Set (6 Discs)

There is no doubt in my mind that Babylon 5 is one of the greatest sci-fi programs ever, a 4 year story arc (year 5 was added due to popular demand) that is so clever, I marvel at it's writers. In this the 3rd season everything comes together, Earth declares marshall law, Sinclair returns to join Sheridan and the Shadows finally arrive big time. An excellent cast, non stop drama, and a cliffhanger which makes you want to see the next season...

Season 1 was good, season 2 was slightly better, this season is brilliant. The plotpoints of the past 2 years come together as the shadow war comes into force. Loads of great episodes, but 'Severed Dreams' was my favourite, best ep of the entire series so far. If I could award 4 1/2 stars I would, as the only negative points are the occasional naff episode ('grey 17 is missing') and that the finale is a bit underwhelming, but all in all this is complex, intelligent sci-fi with an epic scope.

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.