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alt title(s): Babylon 5 
"It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call — home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5."
"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. A self-contained world five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space, all alone in the night. It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind...the year the Great War came upon us all. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5."
— Opening narration, season 2
"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed. But, in the Year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope for victory. The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5."
— Opening narration, season 3
"It was the year of fire... the year of destruction... the year we took back what was ours. It was the year of rebirth... the year of great sadness... the year of pain... and the year of joy. It was a new age. It was the end of history. It was the year everything changed. The year is 2261. The place: Babylon 5."
— Opening narration, season 4
Babylon 5, a Nineties Adventure Space Show created by J Michael Straczynski, ran from 1994-1998 (a two-hour pilot, "The Gathering", had aired in 1993). It was syndicated for its first four seasons, and was shown on TNT in its fifth.
Babylon 5 took the use of Story Arcs to new heights, and introduced the concept of the Wham Episode, with probably over half of its episodes contributing to one major series-long arc (a Myth Arc). JMS had plotted out much of the arc before the series began, and occasionally referred to it as a five-year long Mini Series. (The fourth and fifth seasons had to be telescoped into one when the show was going to be prematurely ended. Then it was Un Cancelled and picked up by TNT, and they had to scramble to create a fifth season, which was not as well-liked by most fans.)
While the series is often given as an early example of a hard science fiction show, it does have aliens with powers verging on magic and Psychic Powers. Still, by TV standards, it's fairly crispy sci-fi. Likewise, while the show is often seen as being more toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, at times almost edging into Black And Grey Morality, it also has some shining moments of idealism as well. One could say that the overarching Aesop of the series is "the pragmatic survive, and the determined thrive, but Faith Manages".
It spun off the short-lived series Crusade which ran for 13 episodes in 1999, telling the story of the spaceship Excalibur and the search for a counteragent to/cure for a slow-acting biological weapon that had been successfully deployed against the Earth. Despite its superficial resemblance to the plot of Star Blazers, Crusade showed considerable promise before its premature death.
There were several associated Made For TV Movies:
- The Gathering — 1993 pilot
- In the Beginning — 1998, a prequel to the series
- Thirdspace — 1998, takes place during the fourth season of the series
- The River of Souls — 1998, takes place shortly after the end of series (excluding its Distant Finale). Features Martin Sheen.
- A Call to Arms — 1999, takes place about five years after the end of the series (excluding its Distant Finale). Serves as a lead-in to Crusade.
- Legend Of The Rangers — 2002 Made For TV Movie telling the story of a Ranger fleet. This was actually intended to lead into a third B5 series.
- The Lost Tales — 2007 Direct To Video interquel which hopes to be the first of a series of new B5 stories in a newer venue.
Tropes seen on the series include:
- Accidental Marriage: The "Religions Week" in "The Parliament of Dreams" featured an extremely confusing Minbari ceremony involving eating red fruit and some intense looks between Delenn and Sinclair. As it turns out, although the people attending it were told that it was a "rebirth" ceremony, Catherine Sakai informs him that it could also have doubled as a wedding. He jokes that he didn't think that Londo and G'Kar were one another's type.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: When Sheridan is captured and interrogated by President Clark's forces, his interrogator shares a corned beef sandwich with him to gain his trust. Both halves of the sandwich were poisoned, but the interrogator had been eating small amounts every day for several years and had built up an immunity. Sheridan had not, and the poison made him very sick.
- Aliens Speaking English: English seems to be the lingua franca of Babylon 5, but many aliens (especially Centauri nobility) have noticeable accents when speaking it. They all have their own languages, but a Translation Convention presumably applies most of the time.
- As humans rose to prominence relatively recently, older aliens have thicker accents than the younger ones, because they learnt English as adults.
- American Customary Measurements: The station is consistently described as five miles long. However, The Metric System Is Here To Stay as well, especially when the Earth military is giving space distances.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: The episode "Passing Through Gethsemane".
- Arc Words: Used liberally in every arc and season.
- Armor Piercing Question: "Who are you?" and "What do you want?"
- Artifact Of Death: The life force transfer machine.
- Ascend Toa Higher Plane Of Existence: Ironheart, the First Ones who "go beyond the Rim"
- Author Tract: Quite a few first and second season episodes.
- A God Am I : Subverted in Jason Ironheart, who while gaining immense godlike powers, was trying to suppress and control them long enough to get away and finish "becoming". Lyta gets like this near the end of the series before she leaves forever with G'Kar. Cartagia is like this, but then he is Ax Crazy.
- Ancient Astronauts : The Vorlons spent quite a bit of time imprinting themselves as Gods/Angels and a fear of the Shadows in all of the "Younger Races".
- Badass Boast
Delenn: Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.
- Badass Creed : "We are Rangers. We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass. We live for the One, we die for the One."
- Battle Butler: Lennier and Na'toth, when necessary.
- The Battlestar
- The Baxter: Zack.
- Because Destiny Says So: The eerily-accurate prophecies of Valen. (With a fairly significant Prophecy Twist at one point.)
- Beethoven Was An Alien Spy: The Vorlon Inquisitor, aka Jack The Ripper.
- Better On DVD, makes it easier to follow the arc-based story structure.
- Beware The Nice Ones: Vir, Lennier
- Big Damn Heroes: In the season three Wham Episode "Severed Dreams": "Only one human captain has survived battle against the Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!"
- Again in season four's "Endgame": Sheridan orders the crippled Agamemnon to ram the defence platform, the only hope of preventing it from firing its particle cannon at Earth. Then the Apollo comes out of jump and shoots down the platform, the Agamemnon emerging triumphantly from the fireball.
- Blessed With Suck: a small percentage of telepaths are also telekinetic. Unfortunately, three-quarters of those telekinetics are clinically insane.
- Bling Of War: The Centauri. Dear God, the Centauri.
- The Bottle Episode could often be used, since it was set primarily on a space station.
- In fact most of the series is bottle episodes, for the reason above.
- Bury Your Gays: In every way that matters, Talia Winters, who was implied to share a mutual attraction to (and bed with) Susan Ivanova, was killed when her "sleeper" personality was activated. Ivanova later confesses to Delenn that she believes she loved Talia. It should be noted that the relationship was to be explored more thoroughly if the actress playing the former hadn't left the series, so it doesn't carry quite so many Unfortunate Implications as it might otherwise.
- The Caligula: Centauri Emperor Cartagia.
- Cant Hold His Liquor: Never give a Minbari alcohol. Even a small amount may send him into a homicidal rage.
- Captains Log: In some episodes.
- The Cassandra: G'Kar
- Chekhovs Boomerang: The alien healing device.
- Chekhov MIA: Anna Sheridan
- Compressed Vice : The Minbari's extreme beliefs about honor in "There All the Honor Lies", which are never mentioned in any other episode and don't jibe with the way most Minbari characters actually behave.
- Then again, the honor-bound were of the Warrior Caste, while the Minbari normally seen are of the Religious Caste. Two essentially different cultures, with different codes of behavior.
- The beliefs in that episode are repeatedly described as Minbari beliefs, not Warrior Caste beliefs. Moreover, Lennier, a member of the Religious Caste, is the example used to make Sheridan and others realize there are exceptions to the supposedly rigid rule.
- Most Minbari do behave that way, but most Minbari are not on the show. Only those who stand out for some reason — ambassadors, extremists, rebels — are noteworthy enough to receive Character Focus. Also, in most episodes their honor is not being challenged.
- The Warrior Caste do consider their beliefs to be the "main" Minbari beliefs; it's perfectly in keeping with their established arrogance to present it that way, and Lennier was trained by them and picked up some of their ideas.
- Contest Winner Cameo: Dr Lillian Hobbes
- The Corps Is Mother: Trope Namer.
- Crouching Moron Hidden Badass: Vir Cotto is weak, foolish and you wouldn't like him when he's angry
 .
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: See that part for more details. Many, many examples.
- Crystal Spires And Togas: The Minbari homeworld.
- Cute Kids And Robots : Subverted several times, just to hammer home the fact that J Michael Straczynski despised this trope. The trope name, in fact, comes from JMS's early GEnie posts about the B5 project.
- Deadly Decadent Court : Two Words: The Centaurum.
- Deal With The Devil : "What do you want?"
- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night : The Earth Alliance's President Elizabeth Lev during the prologue movie. "No greater sacrifice has ever been asked, but I ask you, now, to step forward. One last time. One last battle, to hold the line against the night." One long Crowning Moment Of Awesome for humanity, and a Tear Jerker speech if ever there was one.
- Deus Ex Nukina : "Z'ha'dum." End of line.
- Dream Sequence : Very effectively used in "Interludes and Examinations" and "The Very Long Night of Londo Mollari"
- Dis Continuity : Babylon 5 had four seasons. And no TV movies.
- Distant Finale : "Sleeping in Light."
- "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" is a Distant (Season) Finale, replaced by "Sleeping in Light" when the show was Un Canceled.
- The Documentary : "And Now for a Word"
- Dueling Shows with Star Trek Deep Space Nine
- B5 delivered a magnificent Take That in its second season:
Ivanova: "This isn't some deep-space franchise, this station means something!"
- Earth Shattering Kaboom, during the entire fourth season.
- Earth That Was: Inverted, once Earth is bombed back to the dark ages in the future, it's The Alliance, Sheridan, and the war of the third age that become myth.
- Eternal Engine: the Great Machine of Epsilon III.
- Evolutionary Levels
- Extended Disarming: Dureena's arrival in "A Call To Arms"
- Face Death With Dignity: In Passing Through Gethsemane.
- Both the Face Heel Turn and the Heel Face Turn, at many points. particularly the Vorlons, who turn out to be Knights Templar, and the main cast, who break away from the Earth Alliance in the third season episode "Severed Dreams".
- Honestly though, how can you not include Londo as the ultimate example of how to do both?
- Ditto Lennier.
- Fake Memories : With capital punishment abolished in Human society, psychopaths and murderers are sentenced to Death of Personality; they have their memories erased and altered by telepaths and their personality restructured to become pacifists and useful members of society (episode: "Passing Through Gethsemane").
- The Federation : The Earth Alliance. At first.
- Fighting For A Homeland : The Drakh, Byron's Telepaths
- Find The Cure : Subverted in "Confessions and Lamentations".
- Flash Forward : "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" consisted almost entirely of four flash-forwards.
- Fling A Light Into The Future: The past, in this case. Babylon 4 was sent to help in the last Shadow war.
- Flower From The Mountaintop: Ranger instructor Turval uses a hypothetical mission along these lines as an example of the sort of seemingly-trivial mission worth dying to complete.
- Foreshadowing was frequently used—since the series was so intricately plotted in advance, it could be. Similarly prophecies (You Cant Fight Fate), and a particularly well-crafted example of a Stable Time Loop. It was actually built in to such an extent that actors were forbidden from ad-libbing, for fear of it screwing up the foreshadowing.
- Genetic Memory : Fear for the Shadows and reverence for the Vorlons are explained as a combination of several species retaining race memories of the last Shadow War and the Vorlons using genetic and mental manipulation on the young species.
- Glowing Eyes Of Doom: The Shadows, the monocular "eye" in the Vorlon encounter suits and Lyta when she starts using her enhanced telepathic abilities in her A God Am I stage, and when being possessed by either Vorlons or Shadows during their Final Battle.
- Government Drug Enforcement : Human telepaths who refuse to join the Psi Corps must take powerful medication to suppress their abilities, drugs that eventually drive them to suicide.
- Heroic Sacrifice: a number of ships take one for the team as part of their collective "screw you" to the Vorlons and Shadows, and Kosh arranges for some Vorlon ships to attack the Shadows to help Sheridan build his alliance. He gets torn to shreds for this violation of the Vorlon/Shadow rules of engagement.
- Hey Its That Guy: Many cast members were well-known for other roles before the show, or became well-known for other roles afterward. The main and recurring cast of Babylon 5 included Kinickie from Grease, Will Robinson from Lost In Space, Danielle Rousseau from Lost, Chekov and Tomalak from Star Trek, Flounder from Animal House, and the title character of Tron (not to mention a doomed accounting program). A one-shot character had been Dr. Jacoby from Twin Peaks.
- Hollywood Tactics (seen in the Legend of the Rangers pilot). "We do not retreat, whatever the reason." A rather stupid tactic for a group known as "Rangers", whose job often involves bringing back information on mysterious aliens of terrifying technological superiority.
- Honor Before Reason / Proud Warrior Race Guy: Deconstructed several times over with the Minbari warrior caste, whose rigid determination to uphold honor and tradition results in a great deal of pain and pointless death.
- Ho Yay: Played with hilarious Lampshade Hanging during Marcus and Franklin's trip to Mars due to a Smithical Marriage in their stolen IDs.
- Londo and G'Kar from late season 4 on. Lampshaded in a season 5 episode when two workers who encounter them for the first time comment on their relationship with: "How long have they been married?"
- Humans Are Special: Used rather often, and to occasionally obnoxious effect. Straczynski seems to hold this trope close to his heart. Alien customs are generally portrayed as bizarre and just so gosh darn wacky — see the Centauri contribution to "religion week" in season one, Sheridan's dinner with Delenn and Lennier in season two, the Drazi pilgrims' reaction to an apparent visitation by an angel in season three, et cetera. If an episode features alien customs, expect them to be used as lazy comic relief. Human customs and ceremonies, on the other hand, are treated with the utmost respect — silly or not.
- You know, I always thought the "silly" alien customs were meant as a mirror to shine light on just how silly our own customs and ceremonies are. You do see the occasional security guards having trouble (and not really caring about) keeping track of them all, but that's realistic enough even with only human religions to worry about.
- Human Popsicle: Second season, we learn that a few human sleeper ships were sent out before the Centauri sold jumpgate technology to Earth. Medlab also has a few units to store and transport patients who need more help than the station can provide. And then there are the Shadow-altered telepaths that turn up later.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: In "The Fall of Night", Sheridan only knew to jump from the core shuttle because the bomb was one of these.
- Irony: Delenn gives Garibaldi the "Blind and Toothless" speech when he espouses the death penalty ("Eye for an Eye"), despite she herself having ordered a genocide over the death of one man in particular.
- Dramatic Irony: Delenn tells her fellow Religious Caste leaders how brutal and unpredictable the Warrior Caste is, how they would never turn on their own, and how people from her Caste are all wiser and better than them. This is after these guys had, after incomplete information, attached waste exhaust to the environmental systems to kill everyone on the ship so they wouldn't surrender.
- Israelis With Infrared Missiles: While not precisely a member of the IDF, Colonel Ari Ben-zayn from the first-season episode "Eyes" is a tough, suspicious Earth Force intelligence operative with a life story strongly reminiscent of the sort of ex-IDF troops who become Mossad agents.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: One of the classics.
- Jonas Quinn: Elizabeth Lochley for Susan Ivanova, John Sheridan for Jeffrey Sinclair, Susan Ivanova for Laurel Takashima, Stephen Franklin for Benjamin Kyle, Talia Winters for Lyta Alexander, and later Lyta Alexander for Talia Winters.
- Knight In Sour Armor: Marcus Cole
- Knight Templar: Byron's followers.
- Large Ham: "My deeeaarr... Meeester Garibaldi!"
- Last Minute Reprieve : Used a few times throughout the series.
- Letter Motif
- Literary Allusion Title
- Littlest Cancer Patient : Subverted twice; see above under Cute Kids And Robots.
- Locked In A Room: Subverted in "Convictions"
- Loss Of Identity: Death Of Personality
- Lower Deck Episode : "A View from the Gallery"
- Magnificent Bastard : Londo Mollari is either a Magnificent Bastard or a Tragic Hero, depending on the episode. He's vastly entertaining to watch, but once his machinations begin to spin out of control, everyone knows it, and even his few friends stop liking him.
- Mayfly December Romance, Sheridan and Delenn.
- Mentor Archetype : Aldous Gajic to "Jinxo" in the first season episode "Grail". As well as several other characters.
- The Messiah: Byron, Sheridan, Sinclair and Delenn, all in their own ways.
- Midnight On The Firing Line, at the beginning of its Myth Arc. Trope Namer, of course.
- Mind Manipulation, such as Mind Probe and Mind Rape : Something PsiCop Mr. Bester was very fond of.
- The power granted by the telepathic drug "Dust" is specifically described as Mind Rape in the episode (season three's "Dust to Dust") in which it's a major plot element. G'Kar does it to Londo, finding out about his role in the bombing of the Narn homeworld.
- Happens to Sheridan and Delenn, more or less by design, somewhat by consent, during the final battle with the Shadows and Vorlons.
- Mind Over Manners: The less evil telepaths, most of the time, follow the rule about not scanning someone against their will. Mostly.
- Money Dear Boy: Dr. Vance Hendricks' raison d'être in the first-season episode "Infection."
- Moral Myopia : A lot of it, actually. Minbari were all pissy over Sheridan's nuking of the Blackstar despite their own policy of taking no prisoners and leaving no combatant survivors [that they know of]. Vir's arranged wife feels Narns are a brutal race that needs culling and has participated in multiple atrocities. Bester feels absolutely no remorse about killing mundanes and is less than sympathetic toward teeps that are not Corps.
- Mordor: Z'ha'dum. It even has a Great Eye, which Ivanova sees when she's plugged into the
Palantir Great Machine, and later when she visits the planet itself.
- My God What Have I Done: A truly heartbreaking example in "The Coming of Shadows" when G'kar, after making his peace with the Centauri emperor, finally extends a tentative hand of friendship to Londo and buys him a drink — unaware that Londo has just ordered the annihilation of a Narn colony. The look on Londo's face is among the most profoundly sad television moments this troper has ever seen.
- This troper cries every time he has to watch this scene.
- My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels: Ivanova speaking Minbari:
Ivanova: (in Minbari) Engines at full... high power. Hatrack ratcatcher to port weapons... brickbat lingerie.
- Naughty Tentacles : Centauri have six prehensile phalli, 2-4 feet long. Their definition of "bases" is how many you get to put in.
- Near Death Experience : experienced by Sheridan across "The Hour of the Wolf" and "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?"
- Neck Lift
- Sheridan Never Got To Say Goodbye.
- Non Sequitur Thud: A truly epic example courtesy of a drunken Londo in "Parliament of Dreams".
- Not Actually The Ultimate Question: Repeatedly and vigorously deconstructed.
- Not So Different : Londo and G'Kar realize this about halfway through the fourth season. As well as Sheridan and Delenn and several other pairs and groups, including, as is revealed to the characters and audience in the third and fourth seasons, the Vorlons and the Shadows really aren't all that different.
- Odd Friendship: Londo and G'kar, representing two races which had long been bitter enemies, grew into an Odd Friendship by the end of the series.
- One Gender Race: The Pak'Ma'Ra ... sort of.
- Open Heart Dentistry: Dr. Franklin can do everything from setting broken bones to major surgery to incredibly fast pharmaceutical research for nearly every race that lives on the station.
- Our Elves Are Better : The Minbari, who are elegant, refined and more technologically advanced than nearly any other race. As a partial subversion, they are also quite willing to wipe out an entire species if provoked. Slightly. Like, by killing one of their guys (yes, their leader, but still).
- Responding to provocations with overkill seemed to be a common Minbari practice.
- It's pretty much their "hat", really. The Earth/Minbari War started because when they made first contact neither species, in a subversion of Translator Microbes, understood the others' language. The Neidermeyer captain of the Earth Alliance ship misread the custom of opening gunports in a sign of strength as attacking, so he opens fire. This may seem like a boneheaded custom of the Minbari Warrior Caste, and the leader calls them on it right before his death, which results in the war. They alas would not fully realize humanity to be a literal Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits until years later, they assumed us to be an entire species of Neidermeyers and decided to teach us a lesson. Other examples include destroying an entire fleet of Drakh for the loss of a single ship, and arranging a duel between a gang leader and his victim after a mugging. You do not mess with the Minbari. You do often ask them What The Hell Hero.
- Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions : Totally and utterly averted. Every race is religious, although humanity surprises everyone by having so many different faiths.
- Even though JMS is atheist.
- Well, yeah. He's a real atheist, not a Hollywood Atheist. That means his beliefs are the result of a lifetime of soul-searching, not Fantastic Racism.
USENET: (on Passing Through Gethsemane) "The themes of faith and forgiveness were worthy of a theologian. Are you sure there isn't something you'd like to tell us?"
JMS: Never shoot pool at a place called Pop's. Never eat food at a place called Mom's. The difference between horses and humans is that they're too smart to bet on what we'll do.
And I have lost people. Too many people. Lost them to chance, violence, brutality beyond belief; I've seen all the senseless, ignoble acts of "god's noblest creature." And I am incapable of forgiving. My feelings are with G'Kar, hand sliced open, saying of the drops of blood flowing from that open wound, "How do you apologize to them?" "I can't." "Then I cannot forgive."
As an atheist, I believe that all life is unspeakably precious, because it's only here for a brief moment, a flare against the dark, and then it's gone forever. No afterlives, no second chances, no backsies. So there can be nothing crueler than the abuse, destruction or wanton taking of a life. It is a crime no less than burning the Mona Lisa, for there is always just one of each.
So I cannot forgive. Which makes the notion of writing a character who CAN forgive momentarily attractive...because it allows me to explore in great detail something of which I am utterly incapable. I cannot fly, so I would write of birds and starships and kites; I cannot play an instrument, so I would write of composers and dancers; and I cannot forgive, so I would write of priests and monks and Minbari....
- Peril Rollover: How to face the Shadows and Vorlons?
- Pet The Dog: Londo Mollari has so many of these that it makes people cry.
Mollari: My shoes are now too tight, and I have forgotten how to dance.
Vir Cotto: I don't understand.
Mollari: Nor should you.
- Planet Of Hats : Nearly every race. (Well, the Minbari have three types of hats.) Humanity's hat is diversity and community-building.
- President Evil: Clark.
- Prime Directive : The Psi Corps regulations
- Previously On : Used in certain major arc episodes to remind the audience of previous events that are reference, as well as the entire fifth season narration (see below).
- Prophetic Ship Names : Icarus, Agamemnon.
- Psychic Static : The nursery rhyme variant is used against Bester.
- Puny Earthlings: Played straight with regards to a few races' raw physical strength (Minbari, Narn...) compared to humans; but averted in other cases. Minbari come from a planet that is colder than Earth, and temperatures high enough that a human would merely find enormously uncomfortable will kill a Minbari rapidly, not to mention they become violently deranged when they consume alcohol. The Drazi have the opposite problem; they are far more intolerant of COLD weather than humans are.
- The Puppet Masters: Used straight with the creatures that possess the Centauri Regent and Londo, subverted in "Exogenesis". Also, PsiCop Bester subtly controlling Garibaldi by enhancing the paranoid tendencies of his mind and planting post-hypnotic suggestions; and the PsiCorps being able to plant a second "sleeper" personality into people, something which happened to Talia Winters.
- Rage Against The Mentor: Sheridan and Kosh, in "Interludes and Examinations."
- Refuge In Audacity: How they smuggle Na'Toth off the Centauri homeworld. No Centauri would admit seeing their own Prime Minister slobberingly drunk snuggling up to a veiled slave girl and staggering toward the spaceport.
- Rescued From Purgatory
- Restraining Bolt : Something that Mr. Bester installed in Garibaldi's mind, to make sure his puppet wouldn't attack him afterward.
- Retroactive Precognition: All of Valen's prophecies.
- Lots of Rubber Forehead Aliens—But while B5 does have its Rubber Forehead Aliens, it also has a far wider assortment of semihumanoid and completely nonhumanoid species than is usually seen in TV SF: the giant mantis crime boss from the first season, the Shadows (the show's Big Bad), the Pak'ma'ra, the Nakaleen Feeder, and of course the Vorlons (an entire race that spent most of the series acting as The Watcher), just to name a few. And it's indirectly implied that the Rubber Forehead Aliens are the result of genetic tampering by Vorlons, as the humanoid species are generally the ones with telepaths, and the projected form of an unsuited Vorlon is a Winged Humanoid found in most races' major religions, even though the Vorlons' true form is nothing like that.)
- Screw Destiny : The main cast eventually decides this and enlists the aid of the First Ones to fight both the Shadows and the Vorlons, ending their constant struggle for dominance.
- Screw The Money I Have Rules: Why Franklin turns Dr. Hendricks in at the end of the episode "Infection."
- Secret Police: Nightwatch, in their snappy brown shirts.
- Shout Out: The show is known to have a few shout outs to The Lord Of The Rings, A Canticle For Leibowitz, and other works of fiction.
- Such as a Martian representative named Amanda Carter in the episode Spider in the Web. With an ancestor named John, in case you didn't get it.
- And The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester— which is about a telepathic cop.
- Academia is bad: In the commentary for the last episode of the fourth season, JMS stated that, as an academic himself, he always hated the habit of deconstructing a historical character, thus perhaps the title "The Deconstruction of Fallen Stars". He also intended the holographic operator in the third segment to be a doctor.
- Silly Reason For War: The Drazi conflict, solved by Ivanova deftly plucking the leader scarf off the head Drazi, and ordering her faction to wait quietly in a cargo bay for the conflict to end. She even got free booze out of it! (The broken leg, not so good.)
- That actually wasn't a complete solution, since it turned out the conflict was supposed to last more than a year. However, she used her leadership to make her faction dye their sashes the other color.
- Something That Begins With Boring: Marcus and Franklin on the way to Mars.
- Space Opera
- Stay On The Path
- Subspace Ansible: Tachyon relays.
- Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Lorien and the other First Ones. And Not Quite as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, the Vorlons and the Shadows (who happen to worship Lorien as something akin to a god).
- Also, Word Of God says that Humans and Minbari will eventually reach this state. In "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" we see it happen.
- Super Registration Act: The PsiCorps.
- Supreme Chef: Garibaldi
- Take Off Every Zig
- Take That: In a single episode, swipes are taken at both Star Trek Deep Space Nine and merchandising generally; in the series finale, an inspirational message doubles as a dig at the show's doomsayers.
- Techno Wizard: The Technomages.
- Telepathic Spacemen: Due to being Touched By Vorlons, every race has some (except the Narns, due to Shadows killing all of them in the past, but the genes are still latent in them).
- Theme Initials: John Sheridan and Jeffrey Sinclair. Which surely has nothing to do with the show being created by Joe Straczynski. The Theme Initials of the romantic leads matched those of JMS and his wife.
- They Do: John and Delenn.
- Time Abyss: Lorien
- Thrown Out The Airlock: Dr. Franklin does not find 'spacing' jokes funny because of a friend's accident. Garibaldi advocates it regularly for particularly heinous crimes. And, most famously, Sheridan spaced a teddy bear.
- Time Travel : "Babylon Squared" and the two-parter "War without End"
- Notable as the episodes (set two season apart) are both sides of the same time travel event.
- They'd Cut You Up
- Touched By Vorlons: The Trope Namer. Specifically Lyta Alexander and Sheridan. To a lesser extent, telepaths (of all races) in general.
- Twisting The Words: "The Illusion of Truth"
- Two Of Your Earth Minutes
- Unstuck In Time: Sheridan gets Exactly What It Says On The Tin.
- Unusual Euphemism : Characters are repeatedly being described as having "Gone beyond the Rim" when the actor playing them dies. This is most noticeable in G'Kar who continued to be a prominent character even after the show ended until the actor playing him died of lung cancer.
- Urban Segregation: The shiny areas seen for most of the series vs Down Below
- Used Future
- Vestigial Empire: The Centauri spend half their time invading the rest of the galaxy and the other half reminiscing about their supposed glory days, back when — one assumes — they were even worse. Lampshaded with Londo's Lightbulb Joke.
- Voice Of The Resistance.
- We Hardly Knew Ye, Sinclair and to a lesser extent Talia. Also Lt. Warren Keffer, a more traditional action hero who was added by Executive Meddling and later Killed Off For Real by J Michael Straczynski at the earliest point convenient for the plot. Plus Kyle and Takashima in the pilot.
- We Will Not Have Pockets In The Future: Averted.
- Wham Episode: Quite a few, but especially the second part of "War Without End."
- What The Hell Hero: Garibaldi's reaction to Sheridan interrogating Morden in the second season episode "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum".
- What You Are In The Dark
- Will Not Tell A Lie: The Minbari claim this, but it's something of an Informed Attribute as their definition of 'lie' is extremely flexible. Notably it doesn't include lying to save another person's honour (which forms the basis of the plot of the second season episode "There All The Honour Lies") or lying by omission.
- Xanatos Gambit: Most notably, the string of episodes after Sheridan's return from Z'ha'dum was an elaborate gambit ultimately culminating in the Vorlons and the Shadows invading Sheridan and Delenn's minds, allowing the heroes to talk the elder races into leaving the galaxy., Also, Mr. Bester's manipulation of Garibaldi.
- You Dont Want To Catch This: Lennier claiming to have Netter's Syndrome.
In case you're wondering why the opening narrations at the top of this entry don't include a fifth season opening narration, in the fifth season a series of key quotes from the first four seasons was used to summarize the events of the series to that point. While the first four narrations provide a good feel for the series for those unfamiliar with it, the quotes over the fifth-season opening sequence may not be very meaningful to people unfamiliar with the series. For the sake of completeness, here it is:
"And so it begins." "There is a hole in your mind." "What do you want?" "No one here is exactly what he appears." "Nothing's the same anymore." "Commander Sinclair is being reassigned." "Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld while you're at it?" "I see a great hand reaching out of the stars." "Who are you?" "President Clark has signed a decree today declaring martial law." "These orders have forced us to declare independence." "...weapon supplies..." "...unless your people get off your encounter-suited butts and do something..." "You are the one who was." "If you go to Z'Ha'Dum, you will die." "Why are you here?" "Do you have anything worth living for?" "I think of my beautiful city in flames..." "...giants in the playground..." "Now get the hell out of our galaxy!" "We are here to place President Clark under arrest."
— Opening narration, season 5
An excerpt from Commander Susan Ivanova's voice-over at the end of the Distant Finale "Sleeping in Light" may be more meaningful, however:
"Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us.
"It taught us that we had to create the future, or others will do it for us.
"It showed us that we have to care for each other, because if we don't, who will?
"And that strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.
"Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings, even for people like us."
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