Today in Geek History: “Babylon 5” Debuts

On February 22, 1993, the pilot film for the science fiction television series Babylon 5 debuted on the short lived Prime Time Entertainment Network. The series moved to the TNT Network in the US and was broadcast in it entirety Channel 4 in the UK. It ran for five seasons and a spawned a spin-off series, Crusade, which ran for thirteen episodes. A pilot for Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers aired on the Sci-Fi
Channel in 2002, but was never picked up as a regular series.

Babylon 5 was set in the years 2258 through 2262, and was centered around the Babylon 5 Space Station; a center for interstellar politics, diplomacy and intrigue. It was created, developed and largely penned by J. Michael Straczynski, who wrote 92 of the 110 episodes, including all 44 episodes in the third and fourth seasons. Other writers who contributed to the series included Peter David, Neil Gaiman, D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold. Harlan Ellison was a creative consultant on the show, and received story credits for two episodes.

The entire original series is available on DVD at Amazon.

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