Babylon 5 Did Sci-Fi So Well, It Rivaled Another Space Opera With A Much Bigger Budget

While there are many iconic space opera TV shows from the ’90s, Babylon 5 managed the unique achievement of outdoing a Star Trek show that beat it to the screen by a year. If the success of SfyFy’s space opera Killjoys proves anything, it is that the genre has come a long way since the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series.

Although that iconic show spawned the entire sprawling Star Trek franchise, it was the mainstream success of Star Trek: The Next Generation that truly supercharged the space opera subgenre on the small screen. Long before the iconic 2010s masterpiece The Expanse arrived, there was the Stargate franchise, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica‘s reboot, and the one-season wonder that was the pioneering space western Firefly.

There were also Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s spinoffs, including Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. While all of these shows had their fans, none of them faced the same struggles as creator J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5. Set on the manned space station of the same name, Babylon 5 attempted to explore the aftermath of a massive galaxy-wide war years before The Expanse‘s ambitious plot attempted something similar.

Babylon 5’s Creator J. Michael Straczynski Pitched Paramount A Space Station Series Before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

The show’s complex five-season story arc saw a large cast of aliens and humans navigate complicated trade relations and political alliances with alien races, all while rebuilding human civilization and avoiding further political upheaval. If this all sounds dense and heady, that’s because it was, but the most impressive part of Babylon 5 was the show’s ability to marry the camaraderie and escapism of Star Trek: The Next Generation with the sort of philosophical and moral interrogation that The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica‘s reboot became famous for.

Of course, big fans of ’90s space opera shows will know that there is another major series from the era that fits this description almost to a tee. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s story was also set on a manned station, also took place in the aftermath of a devastating multi-planet war, and also tried to blend the usual fun of space opera shows with deeper ethical questions.

These similarities were not lost on Straczynski, who accused Paramount of copying Baylon 5‘s premise for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In a piece for LitHub, Straczynski outlined why he still believes that Baylon 5‘s show bible massively influenced and shaped the first Star Trek show set on a space station, and his evidence is fairly convincing.

Babylon 5 Succeeded Despite Its Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Similarities

Straczynski was sure to clarify that he didn’t believe Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s showrunners borrowed from Babylon 5‘s show bible, but rather that the Paramount executives to whom he pitched Babylon 5 years earlier had shaped the show’s development based on his ideas. Luckily, Babylon 5‘s premise was so great that competing with a more expensive Star Trek spinoff never even hurt the show.

Lasting five seasons with 110 episodes, as well as an animated spinoff movie, tie-in books and comics, and a straight-to-DVD anthology movie, Babylon 5 was one of the most successful and acclaimed space opera shows of its era. Even now, in an era when incredibly expensive sci-fi shows like Blade Runner 2099 constantly expand the genre’s possibilities, Babylon 5 remains a massively influential touchstone for the space opera subgenre.

It is a testament to Straczynski’s vision that Babylon 5 became such a big success in any context, but it is truly extraordinary that the show managed to last as long as it did and become such a critical hit despite competing with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Luckily, Babylon 5‘s innovations were enough to outdo even a Star Trek spinoff.

Babylon 5