Product Description

Platform:  DVD MOVIE Publisher:  WARNER BROTHERS Packaging:  RETAIL BOX Rating:  NOT RATED The future begins - or ends - here and now. Here is the huge space station Babylon 5. Now is the fateful year 2261. Commander John Sheridan has already declared the station free breaking the ties between it and Earth Alliance. It was perhaps only a matter of time before he would have to fight to remain free. That time has come in this complete 22-episode fourth-season adventure presented on six discs and featuring an exciting array of exclusive extras.DVD Features:Available Subtitles: English Spanish FrenchAvailable Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)22 episodes with all-new widescreen transfers and remastered soundtrack 3 with cast & crew commentaryIntroduction by series creator J. Michael StraczynskiCelestial soundsNo Surrender No Retreat DVD SuiteData & Personal FilesGag reelEpisodes: 1. The Hour of the Wolf2. Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?3. The Summoning4. Falling Toward Apotheosis5. The Long Night6. Into the Fire7. Epiphanies8. The Illusion of Truth9. Atonement10. Racing Mars11. Lines of Communication12. Conflicts of Interest13. Rumors Bargains and Lies14. Moments of Transition15. No Surrender No Retreat16. The Exercise of Vital Powers17. The Face of the Enemy18. Intersections in Real Time19. Between the Darkness and the Light20. Endgame21. Rising Star22. The Deconstruction of Falling StarsSpecifications:Format: Anamorphic Box set Closed-captioned Color Dolby Subtitled Widescreen NTSCLanguage: EnglishRegion: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1Number of discs: 6Rating:  Not RatedStudio: Warner Home VideoDVD Release Date: January 6 2004Run Time: 960 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3094 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2004-01-06
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 6
• Dimensions: 1.35 pounds
• Running time: 966 minutes

Features

• The future begins - or ends - here and now.

Amazon.com
Season 4 began on a high point with the Centauri Prime in the grip of the insane Emperor Cartagia (Wortham Krimmer) and a run of six shows leading to the climax of the war against the Shadows in "Into the Fire." If this colossal narrative was resolved a little too easily and the ultimate aim of the Shadows turned out to be a tad disappointing, it still proved to be the most powerful slice of space opera to ever grace the small screen. In the aftermath the sheer scale dropped back a little but the pace never slowed as the rest of the season played out in one relentless cycle of conspiracy, betrayal and conflict, Babylon 5 siding with the rebel Mars colony against the totalitarian Earth.

Meanwhile Delenn came increasingly into conflict with her own people and, paralleling her relationship with Sheridan, Garibaldi became involved with his ex-fiancée Lise Hampton (Denise Gentile), while an intense platonic love grew between Ivanova and Marcus Cole. On an unstoppable wave fuelled by roller-coaster plot twists and spectacular action shows from "No Surrender, No Retreat"--when Sheridan avows to overthrow EarthGov--to "Rising Star"--when the aim is realized--Babylon 5 achieved a consistent excellence rare in television. Yet within that run "Intersections in Real Time" stood out as a bold experiment; essentially a two-hand drama taking place entirely within one dimly lit room. Beyond this a major character died and Sheridan and Delenn married before the season finale again broke with expectation. In "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars," a future descendant of humanity one million years hence reviews excerpts from the history of Babylon 5. In one sequence set in 2762, a Brother is devoted to the preserving of history some time after the "Big Burn." A homage to Walter M. Miller's classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, Sheridan and Delenn have themselves become the stuff of legend. --Gary S. Dalkin

Customer Reviews

Satisfying, but it feels rushed and sloppy
When Warner Brothers renewed Babylon 5 for its fourth and supposedly penultimate season, they had a problem. B5 was one of a number of shows that had been commissioned as part of an attempt to create a new network out of a number of syndication stations, dubbed PTEN. PTEN collapsed during B5's third season, resulting in some legal and funding problems in getting the show to continue. Whilst its ratings remained decent (outperforming the rival Star Trek shows in some key markets), there was some discussion about if the show's modest success was worth the considerable effort and expense to keep it on the air. Producer J. Michael Straczynski was informed of this debate and decided to take drastic action. To protect the integrity of the series, he decided to collapse several long-running plot threads that had been planned to extend into Season 5 so they ended in Season 4 instead, and pull back on the foreshadowing for Season 5. This way, if Season 4 was the end, the show would have a decent amount of closure whilst simultaneously not making a fifth season an impossibility. Unfortunately, this meant that JMS would have to write all 22 scripts again himself, and also change the nature of how a B5 season works in terms of pacing.

Season 4 picks up a few days after thee events at the end of Season 3. Half the Galaxy is at war with the Shadows, but with the Shadow homeworld of Z'ha'dum apparently devastated in a nuclear strike and their ships regrouping, the alliance of worlds brought together by the B5 crew is collapsing as its members withdraw their ships to defend their homeworlds. Sheridan is feared dead amongst the ashes of the Shadow homeworld, Garibaldi is missing, Londo has been summoned to high office on Centauri Prime and the Vorlons seem to be preparing to go on the offensive, and not too concerned about collateral damage along the way.

This is B5 at its most serialised. Straight from the off, JMS rams the accelerator pedal right down and the Shadow War is concluded with almost indecent speed, whilst events on Earth and the Minbari homeworld are suddenly back brought into the limelight before the audience can pause for breath. It's certainly a different approach, and whilst the dropping of the irrelevant non-arc filler episodes is laudable, it can be argued that the relentless action comes at some of the expense of characterisation and worldbuilding we saw in earlier seasons. That said, the story itself is gripping, with Jerry Doyle in particular delivering standout work showing how far he's come since the first season, and every character gets their moment in the sun as the crew of B5 finally decisively strike back against the chaos of the last three years. Special mention must go to Worthram Krimmer as the Centauri Emperor Cartagia, one of the most memorable characters to appear in the show, whilst Walter Koenig does some sterling work later in the season.

One sad loss between seasons is the dropping of Foundation Imaging as the providers of CGI on the show. The replacement effects are adequate, but are nowhere near the quality of Foundation in terms of imaginative ship design or the use of real-world physics, which is a shame.

By the time Season 4 ends, the feeling is that the story is over. The Shadow and Earth Civil War storylines are resolved, if rather messily and not fully, and there is the distinct feeling that there isn't much more to say. As it happened, the show was rescued from cancellation by the TNT Network and a fifth season was commissioned, which proved to be a controversial decision among fans.

Season 4 of Babylon 5 (****) is fast-moving and provides generally impressive and decent resolutions to a lot of the show's long-running storylines. However, the series has to sacrifice some its pacing and more subtle elements in the rush to cram the story into as few episodes as possible, which leads to some problems.

Babylon 5 4
Season four resolves several issues regarding the Vorlans and Shadows, then starts a new series of conflicts.

Babylon 5 - fourth season
This season is pretty hardcore sci-fi with lots of battle scenes. It may not have quite the level of humor as that of the other seasons, but it has its moments. The final episode is particularly interesting because of its overview of the whole Babylon5 universe.