In
the waning days of Laserdisc, Image Entertainment/Warner Home Video began
releasing BABYLON 5 episodes on the big disc format. Initially,
sales for the BABYLON 5 Laserdiscs were pretty good… Then came
the terrible rumor that BABYLON 5 episodes were coming to DVD.
As quick as you could say "I want those DVDs" sales for the
BABYLON 5 episodes on both Laserdisc and VHS dried up- this is
something that I didn’t find terribly surprising. Unfortunately, the rumor
about BABYLON 5 episodes was untrue and the poor sales figures
of Laserdisc and VHS convinced the marketing people at Warner that there
would be no point in releasing the series on DVD. Talk about comparing
apples to oranges.
After
numerous requests for BABYLON 5 episodes on DVD, Warner finally
relented and is offering two television movies as a "test case"
to garner interest in releasing the entire series. In the timeline of
BABYLON 5, both THE GATHERING and IN THE BEGINNING
take place before the events that occurred in the actual series. THE
GATHERING served as the series pilot, while IN THE BEGINNING
came several years later and served to explain much of the back-story
in BABYLON 5 universe. For those unfamiliar with BABYLON 5,
the series takes place in the middle of the twenty third century on a
space station named Babylon 5. Series creator/writer J. Michael Stracznski
envisioned the series’ impressive five-year story arc that involved the
coming together of humans, with various alien races, to stand against
a common enemy in a great war. The cast of the two TV movies featured
the following series regulars: Michael O'Hare, Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry
Doyle, Mira Furlan, Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas and Pat Tallman.
Warner
Home Video has made both of the BABYLON 5 television movies available
on DVD in their appropriate aspect ratios, with THE GATHERING being
formatted for 4:3 full screen and IN THE BEGINNING being formatted
for a 16:9 enhanced wide screen presentation. The image quality on both
films is rather variable, with some shots appearing rather soft, while
others are crisp and better defined. There is a marked improvement in
the video quality of IN THE BEGINNING over THE GATHERING,
but neither program shows off the capabilities of the DVD format. I would
imagine that the production techniques utilized for both films are responsible
for the limitations encountered on the DVD. Colors are pretty solid,
but can be changeable due to the very different lighting utilized for
various scenes. Blacks tend to be solid, although shadow detail has the
limited quality of episodic television. Digital compression artifacts
are rarely bothersome on either film, each of which is presented on separate
side of the DVD.
Both
films are presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 channel soundtracks that decode
to standard surround. The sound mixes are pretty typical for television
fare, a good deal of ambience, but not an overwhelming amount of directional
or surround sound effects. Music is the only sound element that seems
to make consistent use of the outlying channels. Dialogue is cleanly reproduced,
with excellent intelligibility. English and Spanish subtitle are present
for both programs. Music underscores the basic interactive menus, which
provide access to the standard scene selection and set up features, as
well as cast listings.
While
this first release of BABYLON 5 isn’t as good as it could have
been, I have to strongly recommend that fans purchase copies of the disc,
as insurance that the entire series finds its way to DVD. If this first
BABYLON 5 disc tanks, then Warner’s marketing department isn’t
going to green light the rest of the series for release on DVD. If BABYLON
5 does get the green light, hopefully Warner will follow the lead
of other major studios and release the series in entire season sets.
In
the waning days of Laserdisc, Image Entertainment/Warner Home Video began
releasing BABYLON 5 episodes on the big disc format. Initially,
sales for the BABYLON 5 Laserdiscs were pretty good… Then came
the terrible rumor that BABYLON 5 episodes were coming to DVD.
As quick as you could say "I want those DVDs" sales for the
BABYLON 5 episodes on both Laserdisc and VHS dried up- this is
something that I didn’t find terribly surprising. Unfortunately, the rumor
about BABYLON 5 episodes was untrue and the poor sales figures
of Laserdisc and VHS convinced the marketing people at Warner that there
would be no point in releasing the series on DVD. Talk about comparing
apples to oranges.
After
numerous requests for BABYLON 5 episodes on DVD, Warner finally
relented and is offering two television movies as a "test case"
to garner interest in releasing the entire series. In the timeline of
BABYLON 5, both THE GATHERING and IN THE BEGINNING
take place before the events that occurred in the actual series. THE
GATHERING served as the series pilot, while IN THE BEGINNING
came several years later and served to explain much of the back-story
in BABYLON 5 universe. For those unfamiliar with BABYLON 5,
the series takes place in the middle of the twenty third century on a
space station named Babylon 5. Series creator/writer J. Michael Stracznski
envisioned the series’ impressive five-year story arc that involved the
coming together of humans, with various alien races, to stand against
a common enemy in a great war. The cast of the two TV movies featured
the following series regulars: Michael O'Hare, Bruce Boxleitner, Jerry
Doyle, Mira Furlan, Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas and Pat Tallman.
Warner
Home Video has made both of the BABYLON 5 television movies available
on DVD in their appropriate aspect ratios, with THE GATHERING being
formatted for 4:3 full screen and IN THE BEGINNING being formatted
for a 16:9 enhanced wide screen presentation. The image quality on both
films is rather variable, with some shots appearing rather soft, while
others are crisp and better defined. There is a marked improvement in
the video quality of IN THE BEGINNING over THE GATHERING,
but neither program shows off the capabilities of the DVD format. I would
imagine that the production techniques utilized for both films are responsible
for the limitations encountered on the DVD. Colors are pretty solid,
but can be changeable due to the very different lighting utilized for
various scenes. Blacks tend to be solid, although shadow detail has the
limited quality of episodic television. Digital compression artifacts
are rarely bothersome on either film, each of which is presented on separate
side of the DVD. 
Both
films are presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 channel soundtracks that decode
to standard surround. The sound mixes are pretty typical for television
fare, a good deal of ambience, but not an overwhelming amount of directional
or surround sound effects. Music is the only sound element that seems
to make consistent use of the outlying channels. Dialogue is cleanly reproduced,
with excellent intelligibility. English and Spanish subtitle are present
for both programs. Music underscores the basic interactive menus, which
provide access to the standard scene selection and set up features, as
well as cast listings.
While
this first release of BABYLON 5 isn’t as good as it could have
been, I have to strongly recommend that fans purchase copies of the disc,
as insurance that the entire series finds its way to DVD. If this first
BABYLON 5 disc tanks, then Warner’s marketing department isn’t
going to green light the rest of the series for release on DVD. If BABYLON
5 does get the green light, hopefully Warner will follow the lead
of other major studios and release the series in entire season sets.
