The Hildebrandt Viewing Guide for Babylon 5

For those who don’t know, Babylon 5 is a science fiction series from the 1990s that managed to put an epic amount of space opera into TV sets quite smaller than what many of us have today.

I posted my own viewing guide on this site back in 2023, but seeing how current events make Babylon 5 uncomfortably prescient in several ways, it’s worth a re-watch or a new watch on today’s TV sets. The series explores ideas that are both timeless and timely.

To give you the greatest options, you deserve a guide by one whom Zathras assures me is a bigger fan of Babylon 5 than I. And one does not argue with Zathras in these matters, especially when one is not The One.

Enter Charles Hildebrandt, science fiction afficianado for longer than the entire Babylon Project. I’m not saying he’s The One either –we’ll leave that to Zathras– but having discussed this guide and Babylon 5 with him at length (and grab another bottle of brivari, we could keep on talking), I can assure you this guide will deliver you an epic viewing (and potentially reading) experience.

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Season One (Signs and Portents)

• Watch E01 (Midnight on the Firing Line)
  • Skip E02 (Soul Hunter)
• Watch E03 (Born to the Purple)
  • Skip E04 (Infection)
• Watch E05 (The Parliament of Dreams) through E09 (Deathwalker)
  • Skip E10 (Believers)
• Watch E11 (Survivors) through E13 (Signs and Portents)
  • Skip E14 (TKO) (the third-worst episode of the series)
  • Skip E15 (Grail)
• Watch E16 (Eyes) through E22 (Chrysalis)

Season Two (The Coming of Shadows)

• Watch E01 (Points of Departure) through E04 (A Distant Star)
  • Skip E05 (The Long Dark)
• Watch E06 (Spider in the Web) through E22 (The Fall of Night)

Season Three (Point of No Return)

• Watch E01 (Matters of Honor) through E18 (Walkabout)
  • Skip E19 (Grey 17 Is Missing) (the worst episode of the series)
• Watch E20 (And the Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place) through E22 (Z’ha’dum)

Season Four (No Surrender, No Retreat)

• Watch E01 (The Hour of the Wolf) through E08 (The Illusion of Truth)
• Watch ‘Thirdspace’ (B5 movie)
• Watch E09 (Attonement) through E21 (Rising Star)
• Watch ‘In the Beginning’ (B5 movie)

Now, decide if you are going to watch Season 5 – you don’t have to, because the story
can be concluded without it.

If you are not going to watch Season 5:

• Watch E22 of Season 5 (Sleeping in Light) (this was filmed before Season 5, and was originally planned to be broadcast as the final episode of Season 4)
• Watch E22 of Season 4 (The Deconstruction of Falling Stars) (this was broadcast as the final episode of Season 4, but was actually filmed after the completion of Season 5, and it’s actually a kind of epilogue to the entire story)

If you are going to watch Season 5 (which, again, you don’t have to do):

• Watch E01 (No Compromises) through E03 (The Paragon of Animals)
  • Skip E04 (A View from the Gallery) (the fourth-worst episode of the series)
• Watch E05 (Learning Curve) through E07 (Secrets of the Soul)
  • Skip E08 (Day of the Dead) (the second-worst episode of the series)
• Watch E09 (In the Kingdom of the Blind) through E22 (Sleeping in Light)
• Watch E22 of Season 4 (The Deconstruction of Falling Stars)
• Read the ‘Babylon 5: Legions of Fire’ Centauri Trilogy of novels by Peter David, which sets out the real story that should have been Season 5, if TNT had been willing to up the budget. The story outline for these books was created by Joe Straczynski (creator of B5), and the novels themselves were written by Peter David, who wrote two episodes of the show.
  • Babylon 5: Legions of Fire I – The Long Night of Centauri Prime
  • Babylon 5: Legions of Fire II- Armies of Light and Dark
  • Babylon 5: Legions of Fire III- Out of the Darkness

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Happy viewing!