For much of the first season of Babylon 5, the series still hadn't established any sort of over-arching plot to connect the episodes like it would have in seasons 2 through 5. In some ways, it was as if the genius behind the series, Michael Staczynski was still trying to feel for a sense of direction. Because of this, so many of the season one episodes are self-contained in that they don't connect well with previous or later episodes. This is pretty much the way of sci-fi shows like Star Trek, but for B-5, this makes these earlier episodes less satisfying.
This is a well-written episode and did hold my interest. However, once again like so many season 1 episodes, it didn't really do much to address the themes seen in later shows. In many ways, this episode seemed like it was addressing contemporary labor issues and placing it in the year 2258. In particular, the landing bay workers on B-5 are upset that the incoming traffic is far greater than what they'd been promised and as a result, working conditions were becoming dangerous and the workers were feeling burned out and angry. Earth Gov's response was, "you agreed to the contract so fulfill it or else!"--refusing to acknowledge in any way that the workers had some reason to feel used. And, overall, it was engaging and the final resolution of the problems with work hours, wages and conditions was pretty clever.
This is a well-written episode and did hold my interest. However, once again like so many season 1 episodes, it didn't really do much to address the themes seen in later shows. In many ways, this episode seemed like it was addressing contemporary labor issues and placing it in the year 2258. In particular, the landing bay workers on B-5 are upset that the incoming traffic is far greater than what they'd been promised and as a result, working conditions were becoming dangerous and the workers were feeling burned out and angry. Earth Gov's response was, "you agreed to the contract so fulfill it or else!"--refusing to acknowledge in any way that the workers had some reason to feel used. And, overall, it was engaging and the final resolution of the problems with work hours, wages and conditions was pretty clever.