MILD-ISH SPOILERS throughout.
We live for the one, we die for the one. And so this needless attempt at another Babylon 5 spinoff series begins, with Ranger David Martel (Dylan Neal) breaking the Anla'shok code of honour and fleeing from battle rather than needlessly dying. His superiors punish him with the command of an old starship that lost its previous crew in battle. This previous crew still haunts the ship. Martel gathers a small crew, and their first adventure involves a lot of nancying around, chewing scenery and saying "We live for the one, we die for the one" every few minutes.
The thing that made Babylon 5 so great was its five-year plot arc. All non-arc stories are remembered with distaste, in particular the dire TV movies like "Thirdspace" and "River of Souls". When B5 isn't doing its five-year arc, B5 just isn't working. So I don't think a "starship adventures" series would have worked, and this pilot doesn't do anything to disprove my theory. (We live for the one, we die for the one.)
It's easiest to list the things that didn't work:
G'Kar's appearance is the most welcome thing, but it feels pointlessly tacked on. He's the "bridge" between shows, rather like Picard's appearance in the ST:DS9 pilot, or Quark's appearance in the ST:Voyager pilot. He waltzes into private Ranger disciplinary hearings. He just conveniently happens to be one of the ambassadors picked up later in the episode. We live for the one, we die for the one... or did I say that already?
Rather than introducing the new characters subtley throughout the episode, there is one big cheesy scene where the new crew gathers around a table to state their names and specialities. Imagine if a new Star Trek series started with a scene like: "Hi. I'm Will Riker. I'm a First Officer. Yay me!" "Hi. I'm Data. I'm a robot guy. I don't have emotions." "Hi, I'm Tasha Yar. I'm kinda butch and I'm going to die soon."
The Rangers are nothing like their previous portrayal in B5. We remember Marcus Cole as the perfect blueprint of a Ranger, and none of the characters here compare. There is so little spirituality or nobility. The Rangers here are wise-crackin' gung-ho heroes. It's just not right. Oh by the way: we live for the one, we die for the one.
The weapons thing. Oh dear. The first time the weapons chick (Cantrell) jumped into her virtual reality chamber and started punching and kicking fireballs to control the space battle, I thought it was pretty unique. It's good to make weapon control more interesting than simply pushing buttons. But then there was ANOTHER of these scenes, then another, and another. The last one was full on CHEESE, with Cantrell having what can only be described as a laughable spaz-attack. And can I just add: we live for the one, we die for the one.
The "haunted ship" concept is very interesting, but it didn't work well here. There just wasn't room in the plot to squeeze it in. If the pilot went into a series I'd have loved to see more stories about the ghosts. But at the end of the episode the characters basically say: "Well, it looks like we've satisfied those ghosts and we won't be seeing them anymore." Damn!
BIGGER SPOILERS NOW. This pilot introduces what could have possibly been the main nemesis for the series, known as "The Hand". These aliens are said to be about a billion years more ancient than the Shadows, and they have finally got back to our dimension. This just sucks. It undermines the Shadows totally. The TV movie "Thirdspace" did something similar with an ancient deadly enemy breaking out of another dimension, and it was annoying that time too. But anyway... we live for the one, we die for the one.
So those are the bad things about Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers. But it's not a total loss. There were moments of J. Michael Straczynski goodness. One thing you can say about his writing is that he's not afraid of full-on balls-out cheese. The usual charm and groan-worthy humour can be found here in small doses. And for all its faults, it's still better than an average episode of Enterprise. And aren't ALL pilots rubbish in comparison to the show that blooms from them? Wasn't B5's pilot quite rubbish and cheesy too? I'd have liked to test out Legend of the Rangers for a full 22 episodes before giving up on it.
We live for the one, we die for the one. Or we just watch fairly average TV pilots for the one.
We live for the one, we die for the one. And so this needless attempt at another Babylon 5 spinoff series begins, with Ranger David Martel (Dylan Neal) breaking the Anla'shok code of honour and fleeing from battle rather than needlessly dying. His superiors punish him with the command of an old starship that lost its previous crew in battle. This previous crew still haunts the ship. Martel gathers a small crew, and their first adventure involves a lot of nancying around, chewing scenery and saying "We live for the one, we die for the one" every few minutes.
The thing that made Babylon 5 so great was its five-year plot arc. All non-arc stories are remembered with distaste, in particular the dire TV movies like "Thirdspace" and "River of Souls". When B5 isn't doing its five-year arc, B5 just isn't working. So I don't think a "starship adventures" series would have worked, and this pilot doesn't do anything to disprove my theory. (We live for the one, we die for the one.)
It's easiest to list the things that didn't work:
G'Kar's appearance is the most welcome thing, but it feels pointlessly tacked on. He's the "bridge" between shows, rather like Picard's appearance in the ST:DS9 pilot, or Quark's appearance in the ST:Voyager pilot. He waltzes into private Ranger disciplinary hearings. He just conveniently happens to be one of the ambassadors picked up later in the episode. We live for the one, we die for the one... or did I say that already?
Rather than introducing the new characters subtley throughout the episode, there is one big cheesy scene where the new crew gathers around a table to state their names and specialities. Imagine if a new Star Trek series started with a scene like: "Hi. I'm Will Riker. I'm a First Officer. Yay me!" "Hi. I'm Data. I'm a robot guy. I don't have emotions." "Hi, I'm Tasha Yar. I'm kinda butch and I'm going to die soon."
The Rangers are nothing like their previous portrayal in B5. We remember Marcus Cole as the perfect blueprint of a Ranger, and none of the characters here compare. There is so little spirituality or nobility. The Rangers here are wise-crackin' gung-ho heroes. It's just not right. Oh by the way: we live for the one, we die for the one.
The weapons thing. Oh dear. The first time the weapons chick (Cantrell) jumped into her virtual reality chamber and started punching and kicking fireballs to control the space battle, I thought it was pretty unique. It's good to make weapon control more interesting than simply pushing buttons. But then there was ANOTHER of these scenes, then another, and another. The last one was full on CHEESE, with Cantrell having what can only be described as a laughable spaz-attack. And can I just add: we live for the one, we die for the one.
The "haunted ship" concept is very interesting, but it didn't work well here. There just wasn't room in the plot to squeeze it in. If the pilot went into a series I'd have loved to see more stories about the ghosts. But at the end of the episode the characters basically say: "Well, it looks like we've satisfied those ghosts and we won't be seeing them anymore." Damn!
BIGGER SPOILERS NOW. This pilot introduces what could have possibly been the main nemesis for the series, known as "The Hand". These aliens are said to be about a billion years more ancient than the Shadows, and they have finally got back to our dimension. This just sucks. It undermines the Shadows totally. The TV movie "Thirdspace" did something similar with an ancient deadly enemy breaking out of another dimension, and it was annoying that time too. But anyway... we live for the one, we die for the one.
So those are the bad things about Babylon 5: Legend of the Rangers. But it's not a total loss. There were moments of J. Michael Straczynski goodness. One thing you can say about his writing is that he's not afraid of full-on balls-out cheese. The usual charm and groan-worthy humour can be found here in small doses. And for all its faults, it's still better than an average episode of Enterprise. And aren't ALL pilots rubbish in comparison to the show that blooms from them? Wasn't B5's pilot quite rubbish and cheesy too? I'd have liked to test out Legend of the Rangers for a full 22 episodes before giving up on it.
We live for the one, we die for the one. Or we just watch fairly average TV pilots for the one.