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2005-02-10 Entry: "A Slow Start To The Season"

And so we're off with Season 5 of Babylon 5, and they've got a new Captain on the station, Elizabeth Lochley. And then we get a Ranger tied to a chair, who gets shot and then has a sign hung around his neck saying "Special Delivery for Babylon 5"

So, new title sequence, and this shows a montage of clips from the preceding four years, with all the catchphrases of the characters scattered throughout... and the extremely martial theme tune which doesn't really sound much like their previous one... I've no idea how anyone would know it was the same show the way the theme changes!

Anyway, on with "No Compromises." Garibaldi is trying to set up some inauguration ceremony and bugging Zack over it. Byron (well, okay, mysterious guy in hall, but can I just use his name?) is also on the station. He wants to meet with Lochley and is really mysterious about it...

The Ranger is found floating around the station... and Sheridan is receiving death threats. But he's got better things to do, like bug G'Kar - who now has to write an oath of office and a declaration of principles for the new Alliance and its President.

Byron isn't the only telepath - there's a whole bunch of them wanting to set up a colony on the station. And one of them, a young boy who doesn't speak, can send images of things he's seen to other people.

Sheridan overrules Lochley's decision to refuse the telepaths, declaring it a political decision. And after Lochley jumps down Garibaldi's throat about having resigned Earthforce, Garibaldi gets given the Covert Intelligence position for the Alliance.

Well, that was pretty lacklustre... Delenn and Sheridan's bed is at the Minbari 45 degree angle... and Lennier has requested to be replaced. Londo is having a customs issue in "The Very Long Night Of Londo Mollari." After taking a sip from his impounded Brivari, Londo collapses and is rushed to Medlab.

Lennier decides to join the Rangers, leaving the station because he can't reconcile his love for Delenn with her being with Sheridan.

Londo appears to be trapped in some strange dreamscape after suffering a heart attack - the left heart, which acts something like the human kidney and can't be repaired. He's got to live through the night to get the artificial replacement that's on its way from Centauri Prime.

So, Londo has to apologise to G'Kar for all the bad things he's done, and Lennier leaves. This series is really off to a racing start... yawn...

Signing the Declaration Of Principles is a major sticking point for the league worlds in the new Alliance. Apparently a few of them are against legislating morality... maybe they could have a word with the Republican party?

And then we cut to a world being bombed... who are they? Why are they being bombed? And can we stop with the hero worship of the Rangers? Perhaps we'll find out in "The Paragon Of Animals"

Garibaldi wants to use the telepaths to gather intelligence for the Alliance... everyone else has military telepaths, why shouldn't the Alliance? So Garibaldi gets to approach Byron to ask... but Byron appears to have a problem with authority, and has something of a political movement of his own going on...

Lyta makes a reappearance when the Ranger makes it to B5, critically injured, and they need to get information from his mind. Ahhh. They were the Enfili, and they want to join the Alliance in return for whatever they can give.

She's persuaded by Garibaldi to try approaching Byron again... and they stop the Drazi attack on the Enfili homeworld... she's also a little shocked that Sheridan actually thanks her for something.

Of course, once they've persuaded everyone to sign the Declaration of Principles (after using the Drazi as the perfect counter-example) G'Kar decides to revise it again... and it's better this time!

Lyta returns to hear more from Byron about his political agenda... this isn't going to end well... (and how many times have I used that phrase with this show?).

Finally on this disc, "A View From The Gallery" sees an alien attack on the station from the perspective of two maintenance workers.

Okay, this is a dumb episode... and where the hell are the White Star fleet?

Garibaldi is suffering the stress of the position... that'll go badly at some point...

Of course, we get a brief Delenn interlude where she realises that these two nobodies are the equivalent of Minbari Worker Caste and thereby is appreciative of everything they're doing...

And yawn... this is a really slow start to the season... now, I know they had to shuffle the storyline around with Claudia leaving and the fact that they should have started where Intersections In Real Time left off so they'd have had the Earth war conclusion to play into the season with... stupid networks... renew the show so they don't have to monkey around and give this dead period where nothing much happens...