Column Babylon 5 Rewatch: Fifth Season Overview The final season of Babylon 5 was plagued by mediocre storylines and odd character choices By Keith R.A. DeCandido | Published on August 3, 2026 Comment 3 Share New Share Babylon 5 Fifth SeasonOriginal air dates: January – November 1998Executive producers: Douglas Netter, J. Michael Straczynski It was the dawn of the third age… Sheridan is officially sworn in as the president of the Interstellar Alliance, while Captain Elizabeth Lochley of EarthForce—who was on Clark’s side during the civil war, and who also was briefly married to Sheridan years ago—takes over as commanding officer of B5. Sheridan is using B5 as the seat of the presidential office for the first year until the official headquarters in Tuzenor on Minbar are ready. The IA’s first year is fraught, to say the least. Sheridan grants asylum on the station to a group of human telepaths who are not registered with Psi Corps, led by an allegedly charismatic telepath named Byron. Alexander falls in with the rogue telepaths, and she and Byron become lovers. Byron also learns from her that human telepaths were engineered by the Vorlons, which leads to him demanding reparations from the IA in the form of a homeworld. (Why he asks the IA for reparations for the Vorlons’ actions is left as an exercise for the viewer.) When Bester shows up with a cadre of Psi Cops to arrest Byron, it causes problems because the IA charter allows for each signatory world to run their own affairs. Which means that Psi Corps is within their rights to arrest Byron and his gaggle. They resist this arrest, and a standoff with them ends in tragedy. However, Byron’s resistance has inspired a movement against Psi Corps, leading to terrorist attacks on Psi Corps locations with “REMEMBER BYRON” graffiti on the attack sites. Garibaldi is made the head of covert intelligence for the IA, and he and Lochley butt heads on a regular basis. After discovering that Bester has fixed things so that Garibaldi cannot cause harm to Bester, Garibaldi falls off the proverbial wagon. Credit: Warner Bros. Television IA cargo ships are being attacked and destroyed by ships of unknown origin, as no survivors are left to describe the attackers and apparently black-box technology has completely disappeared from the galaxy in the centuries since the present day. An attempt is made on Mollari’s life, leading G’Kar to volunteer to be his bodyguard when he returns to Centauri Prime on official business. There is another attempt on his life there, but that one is stopped by a mysterious alien who also kills the assassin. That alien is a Drakh, and it eventually comes out that the Drakh are responsible for the keeper that was bonded to the Regent last season and also for the attacks on the IA ships, done to frame the Centauri Republic and start a war. That war goes badly—not aided by Garibaldi’s drunkenness causing some situations to get way worse than they would have—eventually leading to a joint Drazi-Narn task force bombarding Centauri Prime (against Sheridan’s wishes). The end result is Centuari Prime in ruins and out of the IA, Mollari made emperor following the Regent’s death at the hands of the Drakh, and the new emperor forced to take on a keeper of his own, lest the Drakh destroy the rest of the homeworld. Vir takes over as Centauri ambassador to B5. Garibaldi’s drunkenness comes out eventually, and it’s Lochley of all people—a recovering addict herself—who proves most helpful to him. He resigns his post, replaced as head of covert intelligence by Tessa Halloran, the erstwhile Number One of the Mars Resistance, which also helps to improve Mars’ standing, as Earth is sabotaging their attempts to be independent. For his part, Garibaldi is all set to take over Edgars Industries after marrying Lise (who also helps him get sober). The Book of G’Kar has become such a hit that G’Kar now has groupies who will not leave him alone (one of them tries to kill G’Kar because G’Kar is, justifiably, snotty to him). He’s also being asked to return to take over the Narn government. He wants neither, so he leaves the station, naming Ta’Lon as his successor. Alexander is backing the terrorist attacks on Psi Corps. Nobody on B5 is willing to turn her over to Psi Corps, but they can’t keep her on the station, either, so she goes off with G’Kar (with whom she has already arranged for an exchange—telepath DNA in return for help finding a telepaths’ homeworld). She also makes a deal with Garibaldi to help create a secret slush fund for the rogue telepaths in return for Alexander removing Bester’s block. Lennier joins the Rangers, mostly because he can’t stand to be near Delenn and Sheridan because he’s turned into a mopey twerp over Delenn. When Sheridan and Delenn are en route to Minbar to finally occupy the new IA HQ in Tuzenor, Lennier deliberately fails to act to save Sheridan’s life, leading to him running away in shame. The season ends two decades in the future. Sheridan is now Ranger One, while Delenn is now IA president. His extra hit points from Lorien are running out, and he wants to say his goodbyes. He and Delenn have a final dinner with Ivanova, Franklin, Garibaldi, and Vir, then Sheridan visits B5 one last time before it’s decommissioned and inexplicably destroyed, and then he fades away with Lorien. B5 is blown up, Ivanova is made Ranger One, and everyone who’s still alive lives happily ever after. Probably. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Favorite Get the hell out of our galaxy! From “The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari”: Sheridan appears in Mollari’s dream in multiple outfits: the EarthForce uniform he wore when he first reported to the station, in just the undershirt, as he was in “Severed Dreams,” then in the Army of Light uniform he started wearing at the end of “Ceremonies of Light and Dark,” then in the robes of Ranger One that Sinclair wore in “The Coming of Shadows” and the “War Without End” two-parter, then in white Minbari robes like those worn by Delenn in (among other places) “The Parliament of Dreams” and by Dukhat in “Atonement.” Then he turns glowy and disappears much like the evolved human in the framing sequence of “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars.” Favorite Ivanova is God. From “Sleeping in Light”: Ivanova describes her current life as a general as being “an old war horse, trotted out after a parade so all the kids can point at it.” She eagerly accepts the job of Ranger One. Favorite Never work with your ex. From “Strange Relations”: Lochley actually follows the rules and is pretty much the only grownup in the story. Favorite The household god of frustration. From “Objects in Motion”: Garibaldi is already better at being the head of Edgars Industries than he ever was as a security chief, a PI, or the head of covert intelligence. Mostly because being unethical and extralegal and cutting corners is far more beneficial to a corporate CEO. Favorite If you value your lives, be somewhere else. From “The Fall of Centauri Prime”: Apparently, Mollari thinks highly enough of Delenn to beg the Drakh to allow him to rescue her. Favorite In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… From “A Tragedy of Telepaths”: Mollari tells a story from when he was a child about a guard who always stood in the garden. Apparently, years ago, the emperor’s daughter was worried about a particular flower and so ordered a guard to stand over it to make sure it remained unharmed. The young woman eventually forgot about the flower and the flower itself died—but the order was never rescinded, and so a guard continued to be assigned to that part of the garden thenceforth. He tells that story to illustrate why he can’t simply order Na’Toth to be freed. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Favorite Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. From “In the Kingdom of the Blind”: When G’Kar shows up by Mollari’s side, the nobles assume that he’s there as entertainment. Vole later presents G’Kar with the guard who lashed him at Cartagia’s behest and hands him a whip. After swearing in front of all these witnesses that there will be no consequences to whatever action he takes next, Vole asks what he’ll do. G’Kar hands the whip back, saying he doesn’t blame the tool for what the wielder of the tool did. This disappoints Vole, as he was hoping for proof of Narn barbarity and instead exposes his own. Favorite We live for the one, we die for the one. From “The Paragon of Animals”: For the second time in three episodes, a Ranger shows up just long enough to get killed. Obviously, these guys have the same life expectancy as a Starfleet security guard, and maybe Lennier should reconsider his new career choice… Favorite The Corps is mother, the Corps is father. From “Phoenix Rising”: We find out that Byron was a Psi Cop. Also Bester genuinely thought that the telepaths would understand that Bester is on their side and won’t harm them, all the way to the end, a level of self-delusion that is, frankly, sad. Favorite The Shadowy Vorlons. From “Day of the Dead”: Kosh manages to have one last cryptic-ass statement from beyond the grave: “When the long night comes, return to the end of the beginning.” Favorite Looking ahead. From “The Fall of Centauri Prime”: More a “looking behind,” as the status quo on Centauri Prime that we saw in Sheridan’s jump forward in time in the “War Without End” two-parter is set in motion here, with Mollari being made emperor and receiving his Drakh Keeper. The Drakh also mentions wanting to do their work on Centauri Prime without interference from the IA or anyone else. At least one aspect of that “work” will be seen in A Call to Arms and Crusade when they unleash a plague. Credit: Warner Bros. Television Favorite No sex, please, we’re EarthForce. From “Secrets of the Soul”: As first established in “Mind War,” telepathic sex is very intense, as the minds intermingle even more than the bodies do. We see that for the first time here, as Byron gets deep inside Alexander, mind and body, and learns all about what the Vorlons did to her. Favorite Welcome aboard. We have some old recurring characters who, for obvious reasons, make their final appearances in this season: Jennifer Balgobin as Hobbs, Simon Billig as a Ranger, Jonathan Chapman as the Brakiri ambassador, Joshua Cox as Corwin, Maggie Egan as Jane the ISN anchor, Denise Gentile as Lise, Walter Koenig as Bester, Damian London as the Regent, Marie Marshall as Dodger, Marjorie Monahan as Halloran, Kim Strauss as the Drazi ambassador, Marshall Teague as Ta’Lon, Fabia Udenio as Adira, and Ed Wasser as Morden. We have some brand-new recurring characters who make their first and final appearances in this season: Wayne Alexander as the Drakh (Alexander also brings back the recurring role of Lorien at season’s end), Robin Atkin Downes as Byron, Thomas MacGreevy as Cholini, Robin Sachs as Na’Tok, Richard Yniguez as Montoya, and Christina Gavin, Jack Hannibal, Victor Love, and Leigh J. McCloskey as the rogue telepaths with speaking parts. Other notable guests: Sharon Annett (“Sleeping in Light”), Turhan Bey (“Learning Curve”), Neil Bradley (“Objects in Motion”), Mongo Brownlee (“Learning Curve”), John Castellanos (“The Ragged Edge”), Martin East (“Meditations on the Abyss”), Monique Edwards (“The Wheel of Fire”), Bridget Flanery (“Day of the Dead”), Mike Genovese (“The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father”), James Hornbeck (“Objects in Motion”), Neil Hunt (“In the Kingdom of the Blind”), Lawrence LeJohn (“A View from the Gallery”), Wesley Mask (“Darkness Ascending”), Bart McCarthy (“Movements of Fire and Shadow”), Francis X. McCarthy (“In the Kingdom of the Blind”), Raymond O’Connor (“A View from the Gallery”), Ian Oglivy (“In the Kingdom of the Blind”), Dex Elliott Sanders (“The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father”), Julie Caitlin Brown comes back as Na’Toth in “A Tragedy of Telepaths” after the character pretty much disappeared some time in the second season without fanfare. But the best guests are the real-life comedy duo of Penn & Teller who play the previously mentioned fictional comedy duo of Rebo & Zooty (with Harlan Ellison providing the voice of Zooty’s vocoder) in “Day of the Dead.” Favorite Trivial matters. The one from “A View from the Gallery,” because it had some particularly entertaining tidbits, I think… Favorite The echoes of all of our conversations. From “The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari”: “Do you know what this is? No, I can see you do not. You have that vacant look in your eyes that says, ‘Hold my head to your ear, you will hear the sea’.” —Mollari ranting at Allan. Credit: Warner Bros. Television The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Goodnight, my love.” What an absolute chore this season has been. I’ve often described B5 as being on a bell curve, with the first and final seasons being poor and the middle seasons being excellent. This rewatch hasn’t really changed that opinion all that much, but the bell’s less even than it was two-and-a-half decades ago. I had more problems with the fourth season this time around, and I also found the fifth season to be far far worse than the first season. The inaugural season was still pretty terrible, mind you, but there were redeeming features and interesting setup for future stuff. The fifth season, though, was just awful. The first third or so is massively dragged down by Robin Atkin Downes and Tracy Scoggins. Downes emits a force field of boredom combined with a spectacular inability to change his facial expression, so every episode with Byron in it is smushed flat by his somnolent presence. Scoggins gets marginally better as the season goes on—she’s actually decent in “Day of the Dead” and “The Wheel of Fire”—but she’s mostly stiff and uninteresting. Scoggins’ biggest flaw is one that isn’t entirely her fault: she’s replacing someone who’s all but irreplaceable. Claudia Christian’s Ivanova is by far the best human character on the show, and Scoggins already faced an uphill climb taking her place in the cast, and she’s just not up to the task. On top of that, the pacing in this season is just abysmal. There isn’t 21 episodes’ worth of story here (not counting “Sleeping in Light,” since that was written and filmed earlier), and everything just drags. As is often the case, the plotlines involving the Centauri are superb. The best writing and the best acting (not just the usual suspects of Peter Jurasik as Mollari, Stephen Furst as Vir, and Andreas Katsulas as G’Kar, the latter being entangled significantly with the former, but also Ian Oglivy, Neil Hunt, Francis X. McCarthy, Thomas MacGreevy, and the spectacular Damian London) was the stuff involving the Centauri. Indeed, it’s the only part of the season I look back on with anything resembling fondness. The season ended with a whimper, as we got four straight epilogues with absolutely nothing interesting happening in any of them, so by the time we got to the one that approached worthwhile—“Sleeping in Light”—it was one more damn epilogue instead of the quiet coda to the series it was intended to be. People have said I was unfair to ding it for its placement at the end of season five when it was intended for season four, but it’s not like J. Michael Straczynski didn’t know what was happening in that last episode. He could have written three final episodes that weren’t denouements leading up to the denouement he’d already written… On top of that, three main characters come out of this season looking really bad. One seems to be deliberate: Sheridan is spectacularly incompetent in his first year in office as IA president. That was foreshadowed in “The Deconstruction of Falling Stars,” which is why I think it was on purpose. But that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. It also lessens the impact of “Sleeping in Light,” as we’re told that Sheridan was rewarded for his year of fucking up (granting Byron asylum, mishandling the cargo ship attacks, losing all control of his generals in the Centauri war) with (checks notes) more than a decade-and-a-half in office? Really? Then there’s Garibaldi. There is no circumstance, none, under which he should have been given any job of responsibility with the IA, or indeed any government or military. Bester completely compromised him and, as we learn, the Psi Cop still has some measure of control over him. He’s the biggest security risk in the galaxy, and putting him in a position of authority in the IA can be added to the parenthetical list of Sheridan’s fuckups in the previous paragraph. Oh, and he’s a drunk, and his falling off the wagon made an already crappy situation worse… Finally, we have the transformation of Lennier into a toxic man-baby who lets his adolescent crush on Delenn take over his entire personality, and lead him to a potential charge of manslaughter when he refuses to help Sheridan and a fellow Ranger whom he could save. It’s a revolting development, one that does a massive disservice to what had been a great character. All in all it feels like the show might have been better off if TNT hadn’t picked up for another season. That’s not entirely fair—the rogue telepath storyline could have worked but for the disastrously bad guest casting, and the Centauri storyline was superb—but the show stumbles very badly to the ending. TNT commissioned four movies to go along with the fifth season, as well as a redo of the pilot movie, “The Gathering.” While they were aired before (In the Beginning), during (Thirdspace and River of Souls), and after (Call to Arms)the fifth season, this rewatch will be covering all four over the next four weeks. Next week: In the Beginning.[end-mark] The post <i>Babylon 5</i> Rewatch: Fifth Season Overview appeared first on Reactor.